The opening day of the 2025 Giro d'Italia's third week has seen some major changes in the GC classification, as Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) suffered badly on the second-to-last of five major Alpine climbs.
He ultimately finished the stage 14:47 down on winner Christian Scaroni (XDS Astana), losing a huge chunk of time to all the GC players and putting an end to his hopes of challenging for the overall in this race.
Before stage 16, Ayuso was lying third overall at 1:26 behind teammate Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), after coming to this race as one of the top favourites to win.
However, on Tuesday afternoon, both he and 2021 Giro d'Italia winner Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) began to struggle around eight kilometres from the top of the category 1 Santa Barbara ascent, the stage's penultimate climb.
Bernal finally managed to regain contact with the pink jersey group, thanks to an impressive solo effort higher up the climb, but Ayuso was unable to find any extra strength and fell away completely, out of the picture on the final climb. He rolled over the line nearly 15 minutes down.
He now sits 17th on GC, 13:27 adrift of race leader Del Toro.
The 22-year-old stopped just past the finish to compose himself, take a drink and put on a layer before descending, and whilst he did not seem outwardly upset or angry, he declined to speak to the waiting media before riding down the mountain.
The Spaniard, winner of a mountaintop finish at Tagliacozzo on stage 7, fell and hurt his left knee two days later on the off-roads of Tuscany. Although able to continue before the start of stage 16 was complaining that his knee injury was still hurting him.
Up until stage 16, there had been considerable debate if either Ayuso or Del Toro would the leader of the UAE team. But on a day when Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), already falling well off the pace on stage 15, was forced to abandon because of a fourth crash, both pre-race top favourites were lost to the GC battle.
Third in the 2022 Vuelta a España, Ayuso was able to rely on one teammate for support, Igor Arrieta but he had already lost three minutes by the summit with 35 kilometres remaining. And as UAE then concentrated on supporting race leader Del Toro on the remainder of the second-last climb of the 203-kilometre stage, it was clear that Ayuso's GC bid was rapidly going up in smoke.
After a week of debate and consternation, Ayuso's capitulation will likely give Del Toro sole leadership within UAE, as the team now try to win the Giro with a different rider than was planned three weeks ago.
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