Spaniard Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) went alone on the climb to the finish to win stage seven of the Vuelta a Espana on Friday, showing a remarkable recovery from his collapse in the Pyrenees the previous day, while Torstein Traeen retains the red jersey.
Ayuso, tipped to be one of the main challengers to pre-race favourite Jonas Vingegaard, had slipped way down the general classification after getting dropped on the final climb on Thursday, but was back to his best on the 188km ride from Andorra la Vella to Cerler.
Italian Marco Frigo (Israel Premier Tech) crossed the line more than one minute behind Ayuso in second, with another Spaniard, Raul Garcia Pierna (Arkea-B&B Hotels), finishing third.
Norwegian Traeen (Bahrain Victorious), who sprung a surprise by finishing second on Thursday to take the red jersey, holds a two minutes and 33 seconds lead over Vingegaard, who moved from fifth to second in the standings but without closing the gap to Traeen.
Ayuso was the first to get away early in the stage, before he was joined by a group of 11 riders, including Australian teammate and stage six winner Jay Vine, and with 11 kilometres left to the finish, the Spaniard made his telling move.
The 22-year-old, who finished third overall in 2022 and fourth the following year, was just eight seconds off then leader Vingegaard in second place before Thursday’s downfall.
While Ayuso is still almost seven and a half minutes off the red jersey, he has managed to win his first individual Vuelta stage, following up the Team Time Trial win on stage five.
“It’s amazing. After the Giro, when I won my first Grand Tour stage, to win a stage here in the Vuelta, which is my favourite race,” Ayuso said.
“The way especially I won the race, I will remember always and I’m super proud.”
Vingegaard had managed to get away from Traeen in the final kilometres, but the Norwegian fought back, leaving the Dane still with it all to do.
“It was a decent day in total,” Vingegaard said.
“It was not an easy day and we didn’t want to go, how to say it, we wanted to still try to save our energy a bit, so yeah, we decided not to do anything today.”
Saturday’s stage eight will be a flat 163.5km ride from Monzon Templario to Zaragoza.
