UAE Team Emirates picked up a second straight stage win at the Tour de Romandie on Saturday and kept the leader's jersey within the team, but it was not overnight leader Juan Ayuso who climbed to the stage 4 victory on Thyon 2000.
While Adam Yates soared to the top of the climb and the top of the GC standings, Ayuso was working at his own pace well off the back.
A day after winning the stage 3 time trial, his GC bid was over, with a teammate picking up the slack with aplomb.
Given the yellow jersey he was wearing, Ayuso's grind up the final climb drew some attention from the TV cameras, but the 20-year-old Spaniard was not surprised in the aftermath of the cold day in the Alps. Indeed, he had been clear even after his stage 3 victory that he is not at his best as he continues to build back from a leg issue that kept him from racing all season until now.
"Nobody really believed me because yesterday I won. But I knew that still I’m not in shape," Ayuso said after Saturday's stage. "I come from a very hard injury, and I knew that I wasn’t going to be there.
"For me, it was a surprise yesterday, but I think this was no surprise. I came to this race thinking I wasn’t even going to push; I was just going to help the team and try to finish the race and see how the injury went."
Ayuso, who made a stirring Grand Tour debut last year with his podium performance at the Vuelta a España, has been dealing with leg pain for months. It has not been easy for doctors to diagnose the problem, with neuralgia the suspected culprit now. Romandie is his first race of the year, and he seems to have come into the event with low expectations.
All things considered, then, to come out of the Tour de Romandie with a WorldTour stage victory is major boon for Ayuso, while Saturday's finish – 3:28 down on Yates after dropping 8km from the line – did not seem to be any cause for concern.
"What happened yesterday is something that I will take with me forever but what happened today is normal due to how I arrived [at the race]," Ayuso said."
Ayuso pointed out after his time trial win that he was feeling "worse each day," so with one stage now left to race, he's starting to think about recovering.
"After I finish this, I’ll have a rest because I’m really pushing and I’m really tired," Ayuso said. "I think I’ll come back for the Tour de Suisse. If I feel good, then maybe I’ll do some races before but I think the next race is Suisse."
Regardless of how Ayuso closes out the Tour de Romandie, UAE Team Emirates will continue to try to defend the race leader's jersey, now on the shoulders of Adam Yates, for one more day. The 2023 Tour de Romandie concludes on Sunday with a 170.8km stage 5 from Vufflens-la-Ville to Geneva.
