"I don't depend on Pogacar" - Juan Ayuso ready to lead UAE Team Emirates at the Giro d'Italia

The 2025 season continues to take shape. This Tuesday saw the presentation day of UAE Team Emirates, the best team in the WorldTour in 2024. Among all the topics discussed, the most anticipated was the grand tour schedule of its stars: Tadej Pogacar, Adam Yates, Juan Ayuso and Joao Almeida.

After it was revealed that Ayuso's goal was only the Giro d'Italia, and that he will not race the Vuelta a España, the Spaniard's press conference generated a lot of interest. As expected, the 22-year-old's statements, reported by Relevo, did not disappoint.

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"(The Giro d'Italia) is my big goal for the season, besides the World Championship and the European Championships. I don't depend on Pogacar, and whether or not he goes to the Giro. If he goes, we'll both go," says Juan Ayuso, as the Slovenian has not yet decided whether he will do the Tour-Vuelta double.

All this comes from the controversy that arose in the Galibier stage in the last Tour de France. Juan Ayuso "refused" to act as Tadej Pogacar's domestiuqe, and since then it has been rumoured that the relationship between the two cyclists has been impacted.

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However, the Spaniard also wanted to deny that: "After the Tour, we didn't meet for a while and in Canada, when we met again, I spoke with him privately to clarify some things that had been said in the press and that were not true. He understood that, and he told me a couple of things back that I also liked a lot."

Juan Ayuso's 4th grand tour

At the Giro d'Italia 2025, Juan Ayuso will race the 4th grand tour of his career. If rumours are to be believed, he will do so on a brutal course against Jonas Vingegaard and Primoz Roglic as his main rivals. However, the Spanish cyclist never gives up, and he has proved it throughout his career.

Juan Ayuso's results in his first 3 grand tours were as follows:

• Vuelta a España 2022: 3rd overall.
• Vuelta a España 2023: 4th overall.
• Tour de France 2024: abandonment on stage 13 due to illness.