Juan Ayuso, the cosmopolitan cyclist who wants to conquer the world

Evenepoel, the youngster who until he was 17 was a footballer and had specialized in winning one-day classics in his early years on wheels, had never finished a three-week race. The first one to finish won it. He had also never run the Vuelta, the race that his father, a modest cyclist, who works for the favourites, had run in 1993. If Patrick was 113th overall, his son Remco won after his magnificent attacks in the second week of the Vuelta and to defend the first position in a final week in which the retirement of Primoz Roglic played in his favor, the reigning champion, injured in a fall when he was second overall. Evenepoel, who carries the pressure of being considered the new Eddy Merckx, referring to the best Belgian cyclist of all time, climbed to the youngest podium in the entire history of the Vuelta. Next to him, the Mallorcan Enric Mas, who at 27 years old finishes in second place in the Spanish race for the third time in his career – after also doing so in 2018 and 2021 – and in third place the 19-year-old Juan Ayuso, the great hope of Spanish cycling.

The second youngest to climb the podium

“As a child I always watched the Tour, especially when Contador won. So one day my main goal will be the Tour”, explained the runner of the UAE Emirates team. On the weekend that he climbed for the first time on the podium in a race of this level, Ayuso was already thinking about the future, about continuing to grow, despite having made history. Never before had a cyclist so young climbed the podium at the Vuelta a España. In fact, Ayuso has become the second-youngest cyclist of all time to reach the podium between the Tour, the Giro and the Vuelta. He is only surpassed by the Frenchman Henri Cornet, who was able to win the Tour de France at the age of 19 in 1904. 118 years later, Ayuso has finished third in the Vuelta a few days after turning 20.

Like Evenepoel, Ayuso wanted to be a footballer from an early age, although he started playing in a curious place: Atlanta. Son of an economist from Valladolid who worked in Barcelona, ​​he lived the first two years of his life in Catalonia. He has no record of it, as the father found a job in the American city of Atlanta, where Ayuso became a footballer. Then the Ayuso’s left for Madrid and finally, they looked to live near the sea: they ended up in Xàbia, where his best friend’s decision to leave football to bet on cycling changed the life of that boy who had to ‘put up with some jokes because he spoke Spanish with an English accent. He started shooting so well that his father ended up being the sports director of the first clubs where he competed in Xàbia, the city he considers his home even though he has not lived there much, since in order to compete better he now resides between Andorra and the north of Italy.

Ayuso, who makes his debut with the UAE this season, had been shining in lower categories for years, and won the Spanish Junior Championship in 2019 and 2020. At the age of 16, he already started shooting in the Italian U23 Championship, for to become stronger, without stopping to study and taking well the pressure that everyone expects from him to succeed. “At the beginning of the season I didn’t even know if I would be in the Vuelta. And I finished third. I’ve discovered the pressure you’re under when you’re at the top in a big race. A lesson for the future. I came to the Vuelta to learn and I ended up on the podium”, explains Ayuso, the young man who wanted to be like Contador but has been making his way. A young polyglot who even today lets his father bring him the statistics.