Juan Ayuso will lead a stacked Lidl-Trek team into battle at the Tour de France this July. The 23-year-old Spaniard will be able to call on some highly capable support in the form of repeat US champion Quinn Simmons and Mathias Skjelmose, who was sixth on GC at the recent Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
They will be ably supported by Mathias Vacek, who won the youth classification at the recent Tour de Suisse, and Derek Gee-West, who finished fifth at the Giro d’Italia in May.
The German-registered team also has firepower for the sprints and the breakaways, with Mads Pedersen making a return to the race after opting to ride the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a España last season instead. Toms Skujinš also rides, while Spain’s Carlos Verona completes the squad.
The team’s Tour tilt will be based around a GC bid by Ayuso. He has previously finished on the podium at the Vuelta a España, in 2022 and 23, but his only other Tour de France participation saw him quit due to illness. His season so far has been one of mixed fortunes, crashing out of Paris-Nice and then quitting Itzulia Basque Country the following month, in part due to the lingering effects of the crash.
Most recently at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes – a key Tour de France warm-up – Ayuso demonstrated that he is coming into the Tour on good form with a third-placed GC finish behind winner Isaac Del Toro and runner-up Luke Tuckwell.
More to follow…
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