# Juan Ayuso

Juan Ayuso Pesquera (born 16 September 2002) is a Spanish road cyclist, who currently rides for UCI WorldTeam UAE Team Emirates XRG.

## Career
### Early years

Ayuso started cycling when he was seven or eight years old, and looked up to Alberto Contador.
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. In 2020, he dominated the national junior racing circuit, winning the Vuelta al Besaya [es] in addition to several other stage races.

### Under-23 (2021)

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. 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.

### UAE Team Emirates (2021–)

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. 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.
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. He then competed in the Volta a Catalunya, his first UCI World Tour stage race, where he finished fifth overall. 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. He took his first professional victory in the Circuito de Getxo at the end of July in a four-man sprint. 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. 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. 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.
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. 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. He then won the time trial on the eighth and final day, ultimately finishing second overall, nine seconds behind winner Mattias Skjelmose. 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.
In February 2024, he won the Ardèche Classic in a four-way sprint ahead of Romain Grégoire, Mattias Skjelmose and Felix Gall. The following month, he competed in Tirreno–Adriatico, where he won the opening time trial. However, he lost the race lead to Jonas Vingegaard, taking home second. 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. 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. This marked Ayuso's first major stage race win.

## Major results
### 2019

    National Junior Road Championships
       1st Road race
       3rd Time trial
    1st Stage 2 Bizkaiko Itzulia
    2nd VII Trofeo Victor Cabedo
    3rd Gipuzkoa Klasika
    5th Overall Trophée Centre Morbihan

### 2020

    National Junior Road Championships
       1st Road race
       1st Time trial
    1st Overall Vuelta al Besaya [es]
       1st Points classification
       1st Stages 1, 2 & 3
    1st Overall Vuelta a Talavera Junior
       1st Stages 1, 2, 3 (ITT) & 4
    1st Overall Vuelta a la Subbética
       1st Stages 1, 2 & 3
    1st Overall Circuito del Guadiana Junior
       1st Stages 1 & 2 (ITT)
    1st Overall Trofeo Victor Cabedo
       1st Stages 4 & 5
    1st Gipuzkoa Klasika
    UEC European Junior Road Championships
       5th Time trial
       7th Road race

### 2021

    1st Overall Giro Ciclistico d'Italia
       1st Points classification
       1st Mountains classification
       1st Young rider classification
       1st Stages 2, 5 & 7
    1st Overall Giro di Romagna
       1st Mountains classification
       1st Stages 2 & 3
    1st Trofeo Piva
    1st Giro del Belvedere
    2nd Prueba Villafranca de Ordizia
    3rd Road race, UEC European Under-23 Road Championships

### 2022 (1 pro win)

    1st Circuito de Getxo
    2nd Trofeo Laigueglia
    3rd Overall Vuelta a España
    4th Road race, National Road Championships
    4th Overall Tour de Romandie
       1st Young rider classification
    4th La Drôme Classic
    4th Prueba Villafranca de Ordizia
    5th Overall Volta a Catalunya

### 2023 (3)

    1st Stage 3 (ITT) Tour de Romandie
    National Road Championships
       2nd Road race
       4th Time trial
    2nd Overall Tour de Suisse
       1st Stages 5 & 8 (ITT)
    3rd Prueba Villafranca de Ordizia
    4th Overall Vuelta a España
       1st Young rider classification

### 2024 (4)

    1st Overall Tour of the Basque Country
       1st Young rider classification
    1st Ardèche Classic
    2nd Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
       1st Young rider classification
       1st Stage 1 (ITT)
    2nd La Drôme Classic
    3rd Trofeo Laigueglia
    5th Overall Tour de Luxembourg
       1st Stage 4 (ITT)
    5th Overall Tour de Romandie

### 2025 (4)

    1st Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
       1st Young rider classification
       1st Stage 6
    1st La Drôme Classic
    1st Trofeo Laigueglia
    10th Ardèche Classic

### General classification results timeline

Sources:
Grand Tour general classification results :
| Grand Tour | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
| Giro d'Italia | — | — | — | |
| Tour de France | — | — | DNF | |
| Vuelta a España | 3 | 4 | — | |
| Major stage race general classification results ||||||||
| Race | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
| Paris–Nice | — | — | — | — |
| Tirreno–Adriatico | — | — | 2 | 1 |
| 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 | — | — |
Legend :
| — | Did not compete |
| DNF | Did not finish |