Spanish cycling barely had a leading role in the last Giro d’Italia, where the combativeness of Verona stood out. The best classified was the veteran Luis León Sánchez, twenty-fourth. Enric Mas and Mikel Landa suffered in the recent Dauphiné, far behind Vingegaard. Carlos Rodríguez, who will debut on the Tour, was ninth but more than 5 minutes behind the Dane.
The Granada player from Ineos, 22, and the Valencian Juan Ayuso, 20, are the two great national hopes. After a fateful season, in which he just started racing at the end of April, Ayuso (UAE) showed in the fifth stage of the Tour of Switzerland what he is capable of. The pearl shined. He attacked in the Albulapass, went solo, caught the escapees (Tiberi and Rui Costa) and took almost a minute from his great rivals, Skjemose and Gall, even more than Evenepoel.
The very young Ayuso feels good running in the Swiss country. After a long injury to the Achilles tendon in his right foot but also to a sural nerve in that leg, he reappeared in the Tour de Romandie and after only three days of competition he won the time trial. The next day, the inactivity, the cold and the altitude played a trick on him and he was unable to defend his leadership in the mountains.
His great victory this Thursday in La Punt, in another alpine day, corroborates that his discomfort is a thing of the past. He himself celebrated the race by tapping his right foot, which has weighed him down in 2023 after shining in the Vuelta last year, where he was third overall, only behind Evenepoel and Mas.
“The body is like that. Yesterday it was a long and hard stage and I had no legs. Today I felt better from the beginning. I had confidence in myself when I started that I could hold that pace”, explained the winner, who stayed very early on Wednesday and lost almost two minutes.
However, the differences that Ayuso obtained this Thursday put him squarely in the fight for the yellow jersey of Switzerland, since he is third, 18 seconds behind the leader, the Danish Mattias Skjelmose (Trek). Fourth, at 46s, is Evenepoel (Soudal). The three are the great favorites since on Sunday the test closes with the dispute of a 25.7 km individual time trial.
“It’s hard to think about what will happen in the time trial. Skjelmose is very strong. But of course, if I win this general it will be one of my best achievements along with the Vuelta podium ”, analyzed Ayuso, who will not run on the Tour, where Pogacar is the boss, but who will be the leader of the UAE in the Vuelta a España that starts on August 26 in Barcelona.
