Juan Ayuso feels like he’s been misunderstood, both by the cycling public and his peers.

“Undoubtedly, yes. A different story has been told of me. Even coming here to this team (Lidl-Trek), when I speak with everyone and get to know all the staff, everybody’s told me that I’m completely different to what they had in mind. And I’m like, ‘Yeah, but if you read the f***ing press!’

“But I understand it’s part of the game and what sells. Two or three things happened in the past that from the outside look completely different to what actually happened and it stays.”

Let’s rewind. Ayuso was — and still is — Spain’s greatest hope to end a run of 11 years and counting without winning one of cycling’s three Grand Tours. For a nation that has produced seven Tour de France winners and 40 percent of the Vuelta a España’s champions, that’s a barren and painful stretch

Signed to the sport’s richest team, UAE Team Emirates-XRG, from the age of 18, Ayuso finished third on debut at the 2022 Vuelta. Everything was set for the Catalan-Valencian to take cycling by storm.

For various reasons that’s yet to happen, and last summer he engineered a move away from UAE and to Lidl-Trek, breaking his contract that still had three years left to run on it.

In expressing his frustration with his now former employers, he famously referred to UAE’s management style as a “more like a dictatorship”, while there were constant murmurs emanating from the peloton about his apparent unwillingness to work for the team’s other leaders, Tadej Pogačar and João Almeida.

This article was published by The Athletic/New York Times in June 2026. To read the full article click here.