In the conference room that hosts the ‘Grandenza’ of the Italian 2025 in Tirana (Albania), the organization places Primoz Roglic and Juan Ayuso at the central point of the stay they share with five other cyclists that are announced as they are announced as … Surname protagonists in the previous race. Go Aert, the downward phenomenon; Egan Bernal, the champion who returned to life; Carapaz, winner in 2019; Pidcok, the British, and Ciccone, the local Italian. Roglic dominates the scene, laughs with van Aert, sunglasses on the hair, risk without risk, professionals. The former ski resort has won four laps to Spain, more than anyone, and a turn of Italy (2023). And he lost that tour of the pandemic that buried him before Tadej Pogacar. It is the useful security, leader of the Red Bull and a favorite for the ‘Maglia’ Rosa.
Beside him, Juan Ayuso shows a more transcendental mood, does not float like Roglic, but faces his first appearance before the international press as a large career of a large race. He is 22 years old, a more teenager than adult and a different service sheet.
He has played two laps to Spain (third and fourth) and a tour of France. He is rookie in the turn. He responds in a perfect English, the result of his childhood in Atlanta (United States), but it is hard for him to smile. It is his first powerful challenge, fierce responsibility at the head of the best team in the world (UAE) of a very ambitious cyclist.
Ayuso aspires to become the first Spaniard who conquers a three -week round ten years after the last one, that exciting turn of 2015 that Alberto Accountant defeated in hard struggle with the Astana of Fabio Aru and the unpredictable Mikel countryside.
“More than excited, I am very excited,” says the corridor who was born in Barcelona, grew up in Jávea and lives in Andorra. It is the only great return that I have not played. I have done two laps, a tour and I lack the turn. It is my great goal of the year, but I have to discover the race, everything will be new to me ».
Ayuso has offered in his short career all the indications to be treated as the new leader of Spanish cycling, with permission from the Granada Carlos Rodríguez. He razed as youth and cadet in lower categories, where he had no rival. He was captured by Josean Matxín for the UAE and assigned to an Italian team (Colpack) before being released as a professional in 2021 with 18 years.
Thirteen triumphs
In another demand filter and with the best generation of cyclists that has been known in decades, Ayuso has continued to win. Thirteen triumphs of all colors, counterrelojes (4), stages and races of a week, five of them this spring. A cyclist who arrives launched and that, in the style of the times, is powerful in counterreloj and in the mountain, fast when required, valid for all lands.
“This year I have more confidence in me than ever, and that has resulted in tranquility,” says Ayuso, who was concentrated with his team in Sierra Nevada in search of Red oxygen and blood cells-. Tranquility makes everything more fluid ».
Juan Ayuso is pure ambition, a definitive feature of his character. «We have the strongest team (Adam Yates, Isaac del Toro …) and we aspire to the maximum, which is to win. Although the favorite is Roglic, who already won a turn, I don’t know how many laps and is one of the best in the world. The pressure is for him ».
They are thirteen years of difference between Ayuso and Roglic. Duel of generations in the turn, with permission from other candidates, Carapaz, Adam Yates, the young Antonio Tiberi, Egan Bernal if he is the one he was again.
At 35, Primoz Roglic can become the oldest cyclist to win a turn of Italy. Last year Pogacar overwhelmed the competition and won with the biggest difference in decades, ten minutes. Roglic took the 2023 turn for 14 seconds against Geraint Thomas.
In the absence of Pogacar and other heavyweights, such as Jonas Vingegaard or Remco Evenepoel, already focused on the Tour of France, the turn is announced particularly open in a route that will harden the third week. The last duel between Roglic and Ayuso opted for the Slovenian in the last Volta to Catalonia, 24 seconds of advantage.
Albania output
«The goal is simply to achieve my best physical form. The results will be those that have to be, ”says Roglic, always laconic.
The squad will leave for Albania, the fifteenth departure from the turn from the outside, and will enter to continental Italy from Lecce, at the southern end. The race will have 52,200 meters of uneven To the late Pope Francis with an unprecedented tour of the Vatican.
The mountain is concentrated in the last week. Two stages to decide everything, the 19, with three first category ports, and the 20th, with the section of land in the port of the Finestre, where Froome dismembered the 2018 turn.
