Tagliacozza [Italy], May 17 : Juan Ayuso's devastating late attack saw the Spaniard swoop to a maiden Giro d'Italia stage win in the race's first summit finish at Tagliacozza. Ayuso led home a UAE Team Emirates-XRG one-two ahead of Mexico's Isaac del Toro and Colombia's Egan Bernal. Out of position for the finale, Primoz Roglic did enough to take over the pink jersey by just four seconds.
Spain's Juan Ayuso brought home a UAE Emirates-XRG one-two in Stage 7 of the Giro d'Italia as Slovenia's Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) recovered after a late wobble to take back the pink jersey.
A clinical attack from Ayuso inside the final kilometre of the first summit finish of the race saw the 22-year-old debutant swoop to victory at Tagliacozzo ahead of Mexican team-mate Isaac del Toro. Roglic battled back to finish fourth on the wheel of Colombia's Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) and wrest the maglia rosa from Mads Pedersen's broad shoulders after the Dane from Lidl-Trek came home 15 minutes down in the gruppetto.
Italy's Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) completed the top five ahead of compatriots Antonio Tiberi and Damiano Caruso (both Bahrain Victorious), with Ecuador's Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) also finishing in the same chase group four seconds back.
Britain's Max Poole (Picnic PostNL) led home a trio at eight seconds alongside Michael Storer (Tudor Pro Cycling) and Britain's Simon Yates (Visma-Lease a Bike). But it was a bad day for Poole's team-mate Romain Bardet after the veteran Frenchman lost time after a crash with 40km remaining of the 168km stage through the rugged Abruzzo region of central Italy.
Both Bardet and his fellow French climber David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) were involved in the incident - and despite returning to the peloton ahead of the final climb, they were dropped once the double-digit ramps appeared in the decisive moment of the Cat 1 test.
Once the remnants of a seven-man breakaway involving Britain's Paul Double (Jayco-AlUla) were swept up with five kilometres remaining, the Ineos team of the 2021 champion Bernal took control of matters. Bernal showed glimpses of the form that saw him ride to Tour de France glory in 2019 - but it was Ayuso who kept his powder dry before delivering the killer blow inside the final kilometre.
"It's my fourth Grand Tour and I've been very close [to a stage win] in the two Vueltas that I have ridden, but I never managed to pull it off," an ecstatic Ayuso said. "To finally do it today in my first Giro d'Italia is something super special and I will always remember."
Ayuso sat back during the final climb as the likes of Bernal and Ciccone both put in a series of attacks in the closing kilometres. After his UAE team-mates closed down every move, Ayuso then pulled the trigger - just as his rival Roglic found himself strangely out of position and too far back.
"I knew I only had to do one attack and I didn't want to mess around with two or three attacks," Ayuso said. "In these finals which are super explosive, you only have one bullet. So I let others to start attacking before and then when I saw my distance, I went for full gas to the finish."
The four-second advantage over the line plus the 10 bonus seconds saw Ayuso return to within four seconds of Roglic's race lead, putting the Spaniard in good stead ahead of the next phase of the race.
"It was really important today not only to get the win but to get a good feeling after recovering the time I lost in the time trial," he said. "So for sure it gives a lot of confidence for the coming days."
Ayuso's UAE team played a canny game all day. Save for an early short-lived attack from Jay Vine, UAE were content to sit back and let the Red Bull team of Roglic - the pink jersey elect - do the lion's share of the work to contain the day's breakaway, which formed on the plateau following the early climb to Roccaraso.
British debutant Double was the dangerman of the move, the 28-year-old not only taking maximum KOM points over the Cat 2 ascents of Monte Urano and Vado delle Forcella, but also riding the majority of the day in the virtual race lead.
Joining Jayco-AlUla's Double in the break were Frenchman Nicolas Prodhomme (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Dutch Rouleur Gijs Leemreize (Team Picnic PostNL), and Italians Gianmarco Garofoli (Soudal Quick-Step), Alessandro Tonelli (Polti VisitMalta), Manuele Tarozzi (VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizane) and Christian Scaroni (XDS Astana).
With the lead over four minutes halfway up the third climb of the day, Double's dreams of pink looked plausible. But once Red Bull, Lidl-Trek and Ineos upped the tempo on the long two-tier descent of the penultimate climb, the gap came tumbling down.
Bardet and Gaudu went down in an innocuous-looking crash on the short uphill segment that broke up the descent. While Bardet quickly returned to the fold, Gaudu and his seven Groupama-FDJ team-mates were involved in a lengthy TTT to bring back their leader ahead of the final climb.
Ayuso nullified the threat before pulling the trigger with a few hundred metres to go - catching Roglic napping too far back. The Slovenian 2023 champion closed the gap on the chasers with apparent ease - but by then Ayuso was approaching the line, his wait for a Grand Tour stage win emphatically over.
The other GC riders came home in drips and drabs, with Tom Pidcock (Q36.5 Pro Cycling) fading on his way to losing 34 seconds and Gaudu battling to limit his losses to 51 seconds.
Victory on the first Cat 1 climb of the race saw Ayuso move above Double and into second place in the KOM standings, behind the blue jersey Lorenzo Fortunato (XDS Astana). The 22-year-old takes over Vacek's white jersey and sits pretty in second place in GC, just four seconds behind Roglic.
UAE's Del Toro is up to third place at nine seconds, with Tiberi fourth at 27" and Pool fifth at 30". The new-look top 10 is completed by Storer, Brandon McNulty (UAE), Vacek, Simon Yates and Carapaz - all tantalisingly within 39 seconds of the race summit.
After his best day on a bike in recent years, Bernal rose to 14th place - just 46 seconds in arrears and primed for his own pink push.
Roglic will don the maglia rosa as the Giro resumes on Saturday with the 197km Stage 8 from Giulianova to Castelraimondo, a lumpy day in the Apennines that features four categorised climbs and practically no flat roads to speak of. It is an ideal day both for a breakaway and a GC ambush.
Giro d'Italia 2025 - Stage 8 - Giulianova - Castelraimondo will be live on Eurosport from 7:30 pm IST onwards on Saturday.
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