Juan Ayuso confirmed his prestigious mountain climbing talent and said he would now “fight until the end” for the yellow jersey following a blistering victory on stage five of the Tour de Suisse.
The UAE Emirates rider was imperious attacking on the final climb from a group of GC favourites, bridging to what was left of a huge breakaway from earlier in the day and breezing to victory.
He lifted himself onto the general classification podiums with three days left to race.
The yellow jersey also changed hands as behind Ayuso, Mattias Skjelmose (Trek-Segafredo )wrestled it from Gall’s grasp. He will now have to watch for both Gal and Ayuso both of which are within 20 seconds of the lead.
Afterwards Ayuso said: “The two races I’ve done this year have been here in Switzerland it’s nice to win a stage of each.” Referring to his TT victory in the Tour de Romandie
He added: “Now we’ll fight for GC it’s going to be hard but I think it’s possible so we’ll fight until the end.”
Ayuso had complained of a lack of leg power the day before when asked what had turned around he said: “ I don’t know. The body is the body. Yesterday I had no legs and I just had to suffer. In the end when the pace started increasing [today] I just started feeling better and better.”
He warned that all his rivals, including Remco Evenpoel who had an underwhelming day in which he lost time; new yellow jersey wearer Skjelmose were also strong time trialists and would be difficult to hold off in the 25km time trial on Sunday.
“If I manage to win the GC it’s going to be one of my biggest achievements,” The Vuelta Espana podium finisher added.
How it happened
On a day of 211km Wout van Aert (Jumbo-visma) was the first t attack and eventually a group of 37 riders made its way off the front of the peloton on what was set to be a mountainous day over three mountain passes, two of which went above 2,000m.
It swiftly built a lead of around three minutes which it held until the peloton shipped away at it on the final ascent.
Although the front group began to splinter on the early climbs it was still in double digits as it came into the bottom of the final climb, the lead having now grown to 4-00.
On the lower slopes of the Albulapass climb Soudal Quick-Step eventually came to fore to set the pace for Remco Evenepoel.
At the front Neilson Powless attacked with 22km to go, he was joined by three other riders as the road began to ramp up to 8%. Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain…