A failed project – Where did Juan Ayuso and UAE Team Emirates-XRG's partnership go wrong and is he right to leave now?

Rewind three years to September 1, 2022 and Juan Ayuso is on his way to stardom. He's in the middle of his Grand Tour debut at the Vuelta a España on home roads and sits fifth overall, which would improve to a podium at the first attempt by the time he reached Madrid 10 days later.

At 19, he's become the heir apparent at UAE Team Emirates, already looking to be Tadej Pogačar's future successor, having committed his long-term future and trusting UAE to enhance his development until 2028 a month earlier.

September 1, 2025 rolls around and Ayuso and UAE's partnership has unravelled, his development as a GT racer has stalled, and a mutual agreement has been reached to terminate his contract. But perhaps the most striking detail is the reason which was publicly given, both by the team and Ayuso in his own statement – a "difference in vision" for his future.

"On a personal level, I feel it's time to find an environment that better aligns with who I am and with my values, a place where I can continue to develop with complete confidence and peace of mind," added Ayuso on his social media.

"I feel now is the time to seek new challenges and opportunities, in a place that has the same vision as I do."

Ayuso had made it clear in previous statements that his intention is to one day win the Tour de France, with a dream of becoming the best rider in the world. The obvious barrier standing in his way of achieving that, for the moment at least, is that the owner of both those titles is Pogačar, his teammate.

Leadership is hard to come by at UAE Team Emirates-XRG, with the all-conquering Slovenian earning that right and the likes of João Almeida and Isaac del Toro also seen as deserving of the team's support. Ayuso's 'vision' that has been talked about must be one where he sees himself as the focus, and UAE's current line-up of superstars doesn't allow for him to pursue that.

However, that was the path he seemed to be on three years ago at the Vuelta, and a year later, he finished only one spot worse in fourth, as Jumbo-Visma locked out the podium, and Ayuso was still seen as the Emirati squad's successor. So where did it all go wrong so quickly?

The 2024 Tour de France and the beginning of the end

Ayuso's dream of winning the Tour de Tour took its first step in 2024 as he was set to make his debut at the race he grew up going to watch and cycling's biggest event, but even then – starting as a domestique for Pogačar – he was clear about what his vision for the race was.

"It’s the biggest race in cycling and it’s the biggest dream," he told Cyclingnews. "My dream is to personally win the Tour one day. But to race my first Tour in a team that wins it would be a good start."

His team did end up winning that race with Pogačar, but Ayuso wasn't present for the celebrations in Nice, with contracting COVID-19 forcing him to abandon. And before that, his debut hadn't exactly been rosy, and he'd come under fire for his teamwork, or lack thereof.

It took just four days of racing for the negative words to arrive, with Almeida shouting at him and onlookers being baffled by his behaviour on the Col du Galibier. UAE's train of super climbing support became disjointed, and the Spaniard appeared to need to be provoked before he came and did his turn for Pogačar – if Almeida, a similarly ambitious GC hopeful, could fall into line, why couldn't he?

The end result may have made it not matter as the Slovenian dominated the stage to Valloires and set up his route to overall victory, but never had it been clearer that Ayuso was far from the team's focus. With Pogačar present, his dream of animating the Tour in yellow would remain as just that, a dream.

Ups and downs in 2025 lead to early departure

Ayuso returned to his top form in the first three months of 2025 and seemed to have got his development back on track, netting wins at the Faun Drôme Classic, Trofeo Laigueglia and Tirreno-Adriatico, before narrowly losing out at the Volta a Catalunya to Primož Roglič.

His mix of one-day and stage racing success brought him to the start of the Giro d'Italia as one of UAE Team Emirates-XRG's potential leaders, with Adam Yates also getting the green light to hunt GC in Italy.

By stage 7 and Ayuso was in a commanding position, having just taken his first Grand Tour stage win up in Tagliacozzo and moving up to second overall, four seconds behind Roglič. He was well in the hunt for victory and ready to try to establish himself as a GT winner.

But that earned fortune lasted for only two days, with the gravel stage 9 seeing him crash, re-injure a cut on his knee, and lose big time to Isaac del Toro – his teammate, who surprised and went into the pink jersey to became UAE's de facto leader.

Ayuso supported him, but by stage 16, his lingering issues came back to bite, and he lost big time, dropping out of GC as Del Toro, the younger and newer heir apparent at UAE, stepped into the spotlight.

A bee sting brought Ayuso's abandon from the race a day later, his second Grand Tour DNF in a row, and though his teammate didn't win, ultimately ceding pink to Simon Yates on the penultimate day, Del Toro showed UAE he was the man for the future. Not only that, but he'd also won over Pogačar's favour, receiving messages of support before the Siena gravel stage and big support after finishing as runner-up in Rome.

Ayuso went from leader and potential Giro winner to third, possibly fourth in line once again when it came to UAE's leadership, with Almeida continuing to impress in 2025 and winning two more WorldTour stage races in Switzerland and the Basque Country.

Though Ayuso got what seemed like a second chance at the ongoing Vuelta, after replacing Pogačar on the start list, his race at UAE was already run, with rumours circulating of his imminent departure and more tension developing as he and Almeida tried, and failed, to work as co-leaders.

While Almeida quickly became the GC focus, as Ayuso shipped big time on the sixth stage, the Spaniard could only say that the overall in Spain was never a goal of his, and he responded but a day later by winning solo from the breakaway and blocking out the noise with his celebration.

"Everything negative – pressure, challenges – is all an opportunity for me to rise," read his social media later that evening, and just three days later, UAE announced that he would, in fact, be leaving the team and terminating his contract early. The long-term project had failed, and he will now look elsewhere for employment.

Was he right to leave and is now the right time?

History would say that riders who have left UAE in the past five years don't tend to end up doing any better, with most of their recent departures being riders nearing retirement, or those who failed to meet the expectations the team had set for them.

The exception that Ayuso will perhaps look at is Jasper Philipsen, who jumped ship from UAE after 2020 to join Alpecin-Fenix, then a ProTeam, at 22, after which he has gone on to become one of, if not the very best, sprinters in cycling.

Though part of the reason he left was because the team was heading towards more of a GC, with his teammate and friend Pogačar set to become the big star after winning his first Tour de France that season. In search of a sprints and Classics-focussed side, Philipsen found his home.

Ayuso, though more than capable as a serious one-day contender, is mainly a GC-focused rider, with ambitions as mentioned of performing in the Grand Tours and winning them – UAE is clearly a top operator in that field, with only Visma-Lease a Bike rivalling them in that in recent history.

But as stated, it's leadership Ayuso wants, the Tour de France he wants, and being the primary focus of a team that he wants. UAE was never going to provide that, at least until Pogačar retires, and even then, 27-year-old Almeida and 21-year-old Del Toro, or another up-and-coming superstar, could well have become the Slovenian's successor by then anyway.

At 22, having seemingly fallen out of favour and down the pecking order, leaving makes the most logical sense for the goals Ayuso has. Whether he can develop towards his high ceiling and actually compete with the likes of his former teammates and Jonas Vingegaard as and when he finds a new team is yet to be discovered, but he was never going to find that out working as a UAE domestique.

The other reason Ayuso's timing could be ideal is that if Lidl-Trek, as is heavily rumoured, are to become his new employers, then he fills the only void they are missing and gives them a GC star to spend their increased budget on and build around.

Mads Pedersen is their Classics man, with the likes of Mathias Vacek ready for the future, Jonathan Milan is a certified sprint star and now two-time Tour de France stage winner, and though climbers such as Mattias Skjelmose and Giulio Ciccone have impressed, both in one-day and stage races, Ayuso would bring Lidl-Trek's GC ambitions up to that of potential winners.

Nevertheless, his attitude and apparently hesitance to work as a team player have hindered his career, so Ayuso will need to play ball at whatever his new team ends up being if he wants to become the star he wishes to be – cycling is a team sport after all.

Domestiques' trust is earned, and he'll need to prove that it was UAE who were the problem in the failed relationship and not him, and that could start with helping Almeida in his GC challenge at the Vuelta – unlike he did on Sunday when the Portuguese rider lost big time to key rival Vingegaard.