Juan Ayuso

Ayuso started cycling when he was seven or eight years old, and looked up to Alberto Contador.^[3][4][5]

In 2017, he won the gold medal in the road race and the time trial at the Spanish Cadet Road Championships (15 to 16 years old), and defended his time trial title the following year. Moving up to the junior category, he immediately made an impact, winning the national junior road race title in 2019, and both the road race and time trial the following year.^[6] In 2020, he dominated the national junior racing circuit, winning the Vuelta al Besaya [es] in addition to several other stage races.

In 2021, Ayuso joined UCI Continental team Team Colpack–Ballan, planning to compete at the under-23 level for a year before joining UCI WorldTeam UAE Team Emirates the following year.^[7] He quickly found success at this level, winning the overall title of the Giro Ciclistico d'Italia, the under-23 edition of the Giro d'Italia as well as the Giro del Belvedere and Trofeo Piva one-day races. Only several days after his win at the Giro Ciclistico d'Italia, he joined UAE Team Emirates early, on an initial contract lasting through 2025.^[8]

 

Ayuso officially joined UAE Team Emirates on 15 June 2021. On 25 July in his third race with the team, he placed second in the Prueba Villafranca de Ordizia behind Luis León Sánchez. He then returned to the under-23 stage to race the Tour de l'Avenir, where he was considered the top favorite to win. However, he abandoned the race on stage four after crashing.^[9] He then competed in the road race at the UEC European Under-23 Road Championships, where he won the bronze medal in a seven-man sprint.^[10]

Ayuso showed strong form at the start of the 2022 season, with a fourth-place finish at the La Drôme Classic, then second in the Trofeo Laigueglia, finishing between his teammates Jan Polanc and Alessandro Covi.^[11] He then competed in the Volta a Catalunya, his first UCI World Tour stage race, where he finished fifth overall.^[12] At the beginning of May, he held second place in the Tour de Romandie going into the final time trial, where he lost time and fell to fourth place. However, he still took home the young rider classification award.^[13] He took his first professional victory in the Circuito de Getxo at the end of July in a four-man sprint.^[14] He was then selected for his first Grand Tour: the Vuelta a España, where he was the youngest rider in the race. He showed promise for the general classification early on, finishing fourth in the first mountain stage, 55 seconds behind the winner Jay Vine.^[15] This put him in fifth place overall. Ultimately, he managed to move up to third by the end of the race, behind Remco Evenepoel and Enric Mas.^[16] With this result five days before his 20th birthday, he became the second youngest rider in history to finish on the podium of a Grand Tour, behind Henri Cornet, the winner of the 1904 Tour de France.^[17]

Ayuso had a slow start to the 2023 season due to tendinitis in his right Achilles, and did not make his debut until the Tour de Romandie in April.^[18] He took the race lead after winning the stage three time trial, but fell back to 16th the following day. His next race was the Tour de Suisse. After having been in difficulty the stage before, he won the fifth stage solo on the day marred by the death of Gino Mäder.^[19] He then won the time trial on the eighth and final day, ultimately finishing second overall, nine seconds behind winner Mattias Skjelmose.^[20] In August, he entered his second Vuelta a España, where he took third-place finishes in stages three and eight, and finished fourth overall, winning the young rider classification in the process.^[21]

In February 2024, he won the Ardèche Classic in a four-way sprint ahead of Romain Grégoire, Mattias Skjelmose and Felix Gall.^[22] The following month, he competed in Tirreno–Adriatico, where he won the opening time trial.^[23] However, he lost the race lead to Jonas Vingegaard, taking home second.^[24] In April, he took part in the Tour of the Basque Country, which saw several of the main favorites abandon following a large crash during the fourth stage.^[25] Sitting in third overall going into the final stage, Ayuso was able to drop race leader Mattias Skjelmose on the last climb, securing the overall victory by a margin of 42 seconds to compatriot Carlos Rodríguez.^[26] This marked Ayuso's first major stage race win.

Sources:^{[27][28][29][30]}

Grand Tour general classification results
Grand Tour	2022	2023	2024
Giro d'Italia	—	—	—
Tour de France	—	—	DNF
Vuelta a España	3	4	—
Major stage race general classification results
Race	2022	2023	2024
Paris–Nice	—	—	—
Tirreno–Adriatico	—	—	2
Volta a Catalunya	5	—	—
Tour of the Basque Country	—	—	1
Tour de Romandie	4	16	5
Critérium du Dauphiné	DNF	—	DNF
Tour de Suisse	—	2	—

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Juan Ayuso.

• Juan Ayuso at UCI 
• Juan Ayuso at Cycling Archives 
• Juan Ayuso at ProCyclingStats 
• Juan Ayuso at Cycling Quotient 
• Juan Ayuso at CycleBase