"In the back of his mind, Ayuso likes that he is fourth in the GC" - Tom Dumoulin sees possible conflict within UAE Team Emirates

It seemed as if everything played out perfectly for UAE Team Emirates on Col du Galibier. Breakaway was caught just in time to reduce the battle for stage only to race favourites and Tadej Pogacar still had two loyal teammates in a very select front group. Right?

At one point, it became clear Juan Ayuso was not as committed to helping his leader as Joao Almeida was. The Portuguese, who himself is hoping for a minor GC result, didn't like his younger teammates attitude on Galibier. Thus he summoned Ayuso with a hand gesture to the front of the group to take part on setting pace for Pogacar. This didn't pass the attention of expert and former pro Tom Dumoulin, who analyzed Ayuso's performance for NOS.

"Ayuso was not with his team all weekend. It is a bit of a normal course of events that you ride as a unit and hatch a plan. But Ayuso was always at the back and seemed to be struggling. Every now and then he was even on the elastic," he points out seeing the Spaniard often at the end of the group.

"Almeida really had to call him forward to help out once," Dumoulin saw. "Then he does help out, but he also comes third in the stage. Then I wonder: Ayuso, did you really give everything for your leader? He clearly didn't empty himself. That created annoyance with Almeida, completely rightly."

Dumoulin provides quite simple explanation of Ayuso's behaviour: "In the back of his mind, Ayuso likes that he is fourth in the rankings and might even end up on the podium. And that is also possible if you first fully support your leader and then continue to the finish. But now his work was very questionable. That will still be discussed within the team," Dumoulin expects.