Giro d'Italia: Juan Ayuso shakes up GC with stage 7 victory atop Tagliacozzo

Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) struck the first major GC blow of the 2025 Giro d’Italia, sealing victory on the race’s first summit finish on stage 7 in Tagliacozzo with a late burst 550 metres from the finish line.

The Spaniard led home his teammate Isaac Del Toro for a UAE one-two to close out the 168km stage through the Apennines of Abruzzo, while Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) impressed to finish in third, having struck out with an attack of his own inside the final kilometre.

The final climb to the line had been a slow burn, with the gentler slopes of the opening 9km giving way to double-digit gradients in the final 3km. Following work by Ineos Grenadiers and Bahrain Victorious on the way up, attacks by Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) kicked off the GC action.

Bernal, looking stronger than he has since before his horrific training crash in early 2022, was next to hit the front along with his teammate Thymen Arensman, before he too made a move 800 metres from the top.

It was a powerful move, but not the winning one. Instead, that fell to Ayuso, who revved up from seventh wheel as Bernal, Del Toro, and Ciccone led at the front. The 22-year-old muscled his way to the front and sped away during the closing 400 metres, putting four seconds – plus a 10-second time bonus – between himself and the rest as he sped to his sixth win of the season.

"It's my fourth Grand Tour, and especially in the two Vuelta a Españas I raced I was sometimes very close, but I never managed to pull it off, so to finally do it today in my first Giro d'Italia is something super special and I will always remember," Ayuso said after the stage.

"I knew that I only had to do one attack, I couldn't mess around and do two or three. In these finals, which are super explosive, you only have one bullet to use. So I let others start attacking before, and then when I saw my distance, I went full gas into the finish."

Behind Bernal and Del Toro, it was Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) who recovered to take fourth place. The Slovenian had been on the defensive rather than on the front foot as the GC men did battle on the steep upper inclines of the climb.

Nevertheless, the 2023 champion is back in the maglia rosa of race leader overnight, with race leader Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) having dropped back from the peloton early on the slopes of the 12km finishing ascent.

He returns in the race lead and may remain in pink for some time with a strade bianche stage and a time trial the biggest GC challenges before the next summit finish on stage 16. He leads Ayuso by four seconds, while Del Toro lies in third place at nine seconds down.

How it unfolded

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Stage 7 of the Giro d’Italia posed the riders their toughest challenge of the race so far with 3,390 metres of ascent lying on the 168km course in the form of four classified climbs.

The peloton headed north-west across Abruzzo from Castel di Sangro to Tagliacozzo with the third-category climb of Roccaraso (7.8km at 5.8%) to start the day. Monte Urano (5.7km at 8%) followed at 70km before the 21.6km, 3.6% second-category climb of the Vado della Forcella at 104.9km. The day’s final climb, the race’s first summit finish at the first-category climb of Tagliacozzo, measured in at 11.9km and an average of 5.5%.

With nine mountain classification points available 7km into the stage atop Roccaraso, it was no surprise that the battle for the breakaway began as soon as the flag dropped. The blue jersey of classification leader Lorenzo Fortunato (XDS-Astana) was prominent at the front and the Italian duly led the way over the top.

Nine points there took his mountain classification total to 58, 36 clear of Sylvain Moniquet (Cofidis), who took third on the climb.

Fortunato didn’t push on over the plateau following the peak, however. Instead, his Astana teammate Cristian Scaroni ventured out into the break. He was joined by the intermediate sprint and fuga prize leader Alessandro Tonelli (Polti-VisitMalta) on his third day in the break, plus Gianmarco Garofoli (Soudal-QuickStep), and Nicolas Prodhomme (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale).

Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe controlled the situation at the front of the peloton, though Paul Double (Jayco-AlUla), Gijs Leemreize (Picnic-PostNL), and Red Bull Kilometre classification leader Manuele Tarozzi (VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè) also made it across to the break in time for the long descent following the plateau.

Tonelli duly led the seven-man break over the day’s first intermediate sprint, 50km into the stage at Sulmona, while the move hit an advantage of 2:30 on the road to the second climb of the stage, Monte Urano.

At the top of the climb, Double sprinted across the line first to claim 18 points. Tonelli followed for eight with Scaroni taking six points for third place.

The uphill run to Vado della Forcella was next on the menu, with the break extending their lead to four minutes on the long drag. At the top, Double once again struck out to lead the race over another climb, picking up another 18 points in the process.

Behind him, Tarozzi and Leemreize followed, with the seven-man group regrouping before the second intermediate sprint at Ovindoli and the subsequent descent. Tonelli, clearly targeting the intermediate sprint prize, led the way through Ovindoli and into the final 50km as 3:15 separated the break and peloton.

The gap would only decrease as the riders flew down the interrupted descent towards the valley in Avezzano. Lidl-Trek and race leader Mads Pedersen joined the chase, with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe also on the front as they had been all day.

Once the race hit the valley, with 30km left to run, the gap to the leaders had fallen to 1:30, while at the rear of the peloton Romain Bardet (Picnic-PostNL) was receiving treatment at the medical, having fallen on the long descent.

Another Frenchman, David Gaudu, saw his entire Groupama-FDJ squad drop back on the flat as he struggled to get back on following a fall of his own. They made it back in time for the Red Bull Kilometre and start of the climb up Marsia above the town of Tagliacozzo, while up front Tarozzi led through the sprint.

The final climb

Ineos Grenadiers hit the front to start the ascent, the peloton now just 40 seconds behind the break, 12km from the top. Scaroni, Double, and Leemreize were the first riders to drop back to the peloton, while maglia rosa Pedersen was quick to slip back from the rear of the group.

Bahrain Victorious were next to take over the pacemaking, leading to the remainder of the break being caught 5km from the line. The peloton remained large on the gentler slopes leading into the tougher closing 3km, however.

The double-digit gradients bit at the top of the climb, meaning the top favourites and best climbers of the Giro led the way at the front for the first time in this year’s race.

Rafał Majka took it over for UAE Team Emirates-XRG at 2.5km to go, the Pole working for Juan Ayuso and Adam Yates as the likes of Egan Bernal, Primož Roglic, Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious), and Giulio Ciccone followed close behind.

At 1.5km to go, the lead group had slimmed down to around 20 men, while Ciccone struck out soon after to kick off the GC attacks. Bernal was the quickest to react, dragging the Italian back before his Ineos teammate Thymen Arensman took over to lead the group into the final kilometre.

The Dutchman pulled until the 800-metre marker, at which point Bernal launched his move. Behind the Colombian champion, Del Toro, Ciccone, and Tiberi lined up in pursuit, while Roglič was rarely in shot and certainly not taking the initiative at the front.

Instead, it was Ayuso who landed the biggest blow. The 22-year-old Spaniard accelerated from seventh wheel, manoeuvring past Max Poole (Picnic-PostNL) and the Bahrain pairing of Tiberi and Damiano Caruso before passing Ciccone, Bernal and Del Toro.

Once Ayuso hit the front, there was no coming back for his rivals, with his turn of pace unmatchable on the run to the finish.

Del Toro came past Ciccone and Bernal to seal a one-two for UAE at the line, while Bernal held off Roglič on the flatter finish to round out the stage podium.

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