"I knew I had a chance to win" - Juan Ayuso bounces back with first win since difficult summer

Juan Ayuso has had a difficult summer, abandoning the Criterium du Dauphiné, then the Tour de France with Covid-19; and lastly not being able to race the Vuelta a España. In many ways a difficult few months for the UAE Team Emirates rider; but he has bounced back to strong form at the Tour de Luxembourg where he won today's time-trial.

The 15-kilometer time-trial was well suited to the Spaniard, who took his first win since the Itzulia Basque Country, and won against the clock once again after beating Filippo Ganna earlier this year at Tirreno-Adriatico in what was a truly breakthrough ride in terms of time-trialing abilities. After a few good days in Luxembourg, he was the main favourite and has put in a strong performance to win stage 4 today for UAE - win number 74 of the year, quickly followed by Filippo Baroncini at the Super 8 Classic.

"I had good legs, so I knew I had a chance to win. Aerodynamics were important, but you also had to have the legs on the climb to make the difference. Today I had both, so that's why I win here," Ayuso said in a post-race interview. Ayuso was 7 seconds faster than Antonio Tiberi on the day and has jumped to second place in the overall classification, only 3 seconds behind Mathieu van der Poel whilst Marc Hirschi is also relatively close to the yellow jersey.

Ayuso is focused on winning the overall classification and tomorrow there is another hilly stage where there is an opportunity to do it, before making the trip to the World Championships. "We are going to do our best to win the race. It was full throttle from the start. When I saw the course this morning, I thought it was very nice," he concluded.