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Conversations between Juan Ayuso and Movistar Team: Is it the possible bombshell of the cycling market?
CyclingTuesday, 20 August 2024 at 12:12
As it has been known since the last Tour de France, where he abandoned by his own decision after contracting COVID, there has seemingly been some tension within UAE Team Emirates and the Spaniard was ultimately not taken to the Vuelta a España. Although unlikely, within the Vuelta bubble the word has been getting around that Movistar is in contact with the youngster.
As reported by Nacho Labarga in MARCA, for this reason there have been conversations between Movistar Team and Ayuso's own entourage regarding the open market. As demonstrated last year by trying to sign Carlos Rodriguez, the team is eager to have a Spanish star in its squad for the long-term future.
However, these talks do not seem likely to come to fruition with respect to the interests of Movistar Team, who currently have only 20 riders signed for 2025 and still need to secure more. Despite the fact that Ayuso's situation in UAE is complicated for him, Joxean Fernández Matxín made it clear in statements to CyclingUpToDate this weekend that the Spaniard "is patrimony" of the UAE team, and that "he has a contract until 2028".
It is clear that right now there is nothing that can make UAE Team Emirates get rid of a rider of Juan Ayuso's talent in this very cycling market, although there are no impossibilities in a world as changing as the one of cycling at World Tour level. Cian Uijtdebroeks' sudden departure from BORA last year and signing for Visma makes it clear that you can't rule anything out.
This interest of Movistar Team could even be considered "desperate" to try to make an addition to compensate for the drama that is coming to the team with the departures of Alex Aranburu and Oier Lazkano at the end of 2024, another difficult situation for the team that also lost Matteo Jorgenson last year and was unable to have a big signing.
The situation is not even similar to that of Carlos Rodríguez last year. The rider from Almuñécar was practically a done deal with Movistar Team, and was to become their star signing. But a dramatic last-minute twist (due to his great Tour de France) saw INEOS Grenadiers go all-out to renew him, and the team lost a golden opportunity that it is now trying to emulate with its desire to start negotiations for Juan Ayuso.
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- Exactly who, Joey, is "they"? Flimsy, illogical conspiracy theories aside, it is in no one's interest (financial or otherwise) to "drive away small local events." Major cultural and macroeconomic factors are reducing ridership, but there is no "they" in this context.verve82520-12-2024
- And our virtual platforms allow us to "ride" famous place that we can't get to in person, which is a pretty fabulous aspect of this weird weird sport.RidesHills19-12-2024
- Which off-season are you referring to? The one after he won the Tour of California? The one after he won 3 stages and was on the podium of the Vuelta? The one after TJV screwed up, never put him away, and lost the Tour on the time trial? We've seen the guy hit the wall, lose energy, nearly fail, and lose races ("I'm dead") more than once. He's got a visible threshold and his fueling regimen is a clear weak spot. You'll need more detail to make this more than under defined insinuations .RidesHills19-12-2024
- Interesting analysis. And yet, I'm in the US, and at a recent wedding reception as a group of us older folks had to stand at a certain place to keep track of a thing, we got to talking, and every single one of us had a favorite rider, a favorite circuit of races, a moment when we fell in love with the sport, and a joy in the complexities of it all. None of us knew about the other's fandom until that moment. It's wonderful that these are my brothers-in-law, and we now know to talk about this when the spouses aren't listening. Point being: there are fans all over, and for US folks, the loss of GCN+ has been huge. As so often, it's the media bottleneck that matters more than anything else. Look at F1 in the US before Netflix, as an example.RidesHills19-12-2024
- On the one hand, what he says is trivial. Of course it's genetics. It always is, in any sport. That's just obvious. Look at Mondo Duplantis, whose sprinting speed is key to his pole vaulting, for example - he's just plain faster than other vaulters and good at the rest of the event as well. In cycling, even when you take the most genetically weird group of people and give them amazing training, some will be better than others, as well. Distributions are distributions and there are outliers and that's just that. Pogacar's body is built for this kind of thing, it seems, with him only recently having had to pick up skills that others have used all along. I'm still inclined to believe that these folks are using entirely legal means to arrive at their shockingly good performance, given how more senior riders kinda complain about (or at least comment on) the regimens and control over the nutrition and exercise and all that. And in every population, there are edge cases of truly exceptional behavior.RidesHills19-12-2024
- And it’s likely going to get worse. They are going all-out to drive away small local events which are where a lot of new riders come from. They want fee income and Olympic medals. That’s all.JoeyB19-12-2024
- Oh Lordspock12319-12-2024
- Interesting suggestion, fo you think testing Tadej’s (or Bolts’ or so many others’) parents would have given us a preview of his potential then or what criteria do you have to pick parents with?Mistermaumau19-12-2024
- Even amateur teams suffer this sort. But this is also largely due to the precarious sponsorship, in very few sports do you find kit with so many sponsors having to be integrated and changing so regularly.Mistermaumau19-12-2024
- I think it’s pretty obvious what was responsible for destroying interest that used to be there.Mistermaumau19-12-2024