“If we’ve hired him, it’s because we have in our mind that he can be competitive in Grand Tours,” Lidl-Trek manager Luca Guercilena tells Rouleur. “But he needs time and a process to develop.” Guercilena, of course, is talking about Juan Ayuso, the young Spaniard who Lidl-Trek have just splashed big money on – up to €10m according to some reports just to get him out of UAE Team Emirates-XRG, and then a commitment to pay him around €3m a year for the next five years. Those figures indicate a lot of trust, belief and hope has been placed in the 23-year-old’s capabilities and potential, as a team traditionally known as being a Classics and sprinting powerhouse evolve to try and keep up with UAE and Visma-Lease a Bike when it comes to general classification battles.
But Lidl-Trek, especially their management, are preaching patience and pragmatism: Ayuso has all the qualities required to win Grand Tours, but he’s got a way to go to leapfrog rivals currently standing in his path. This is not a money-guarantees-success quick hit. “To be very clear, we’re talking about two really strong riders in Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard being in front of him, and you can maybe add [Remco] Evenepoel and [Isaac] Del Toro in front of him, too,” Guercilena continues. “With us, we hope he can develop more as a leader and not as a helper and that we can give him the right support to reach his goals, but he needs time.”
Such a statement shouldn’t be cast as a slight on Ayuso’s prospects or even as pessimism, but more of a realistic assessment of where Ayuso currently stands. He finished on the podium of his debut Vuelta a España in 2022 aged 19, and finished fourth the year later, but since then his Grand Tour form has been patchy and dominated by setbacks: a withdrawal from his maiden Tour de France after apparently falling out with Pogačar; a stage win at this May’s Giro d’Italia but then a late abandonment; and two stage wins at the most recent Vuelta, but a sub-par show on GC. Consistency is certainly something he needs to refine and improve.
Ayuso was looking good at this year’s Giro, until a bee sting saw him abandon. Image: Zac Williams/SWPix.com.
So, too, if reports are believed, his communication with his teammates. He may no longer have Pogačar ahead of him in his team’s pecking order, but he will have to share leadership duties with Mads Pedersen and Jonathan Milan, as well as other GC…