Juan Ayuso dominates Tirreno-Adriatico's queen stage and sets himself up for GC win

Juan Ayuso is a rider that entered 2025 with a lot to prove, and thus far he's been doing a hell of a job. He has won the queen stage of Tirreno-Adriatico today, confirming his status as the man to beat, and has jumped into the race lead with one stage to go. Tom Pidcock and Jai Hindley finished second and third.

With Mathieu ban der Poel attacking right from kilometer 0, it promised to be an exciting start to the stage. The pace was very fast and it took some time for it to form, but eight riders eventually went up the road: Gianni Vermeersch, Benjamin Thomas, Samuele Battistella, Jasper Stuyven, Chris Hamilton, Magnus Cort Nielsen, Andrea Vendrame and Andrea Pietrobon.

The gap never grew much beyond 3 minutes, as several teams had interest in today's stage - mostly with it being the sole mountain day of the seven-day race. The gap began to seriously decrease once the riders entered the final climb where first Bahrain - Victorious and then UAE Team Emirates - XRG began to pile on the pressure on Filippo Ganna.

Vendrame, a stage winner already on this race, went solo in front with 5 kilometers to go, and in the same very steep ramps Ganna was dropped from the peloton as Isaac del Toro set an excruciating pace in the peloton.

Shorttly after the Decathlon rider was caught and Juan Ayuso launched an attack, followed by Tom Pidcock and Jai Hindley. Mikel Landa bridged across, and over the next 1.5 kilometers the Spaniard attacked over and over again until he dropped his rivals with 3 kilometers to go.

It was a coming of age performance from Ayuso, who has a ton of weight and criticism on his shoulders, and despite being marked, rode everyone off the wheel to take a dominant win. Pidcock sprinted to second ahead of Hindley.