At 23, Juan Ayuso already has Grand Tour stage wins and WorldTour triumphs aplenty in his palmarès. But there can little doubt that both in terms of his immediate past and his short-term future, victories number 17 and 18 of his career at the Volta ao Algarve on Sunday have a very special place in the list.
"I wanted to win as early as possible for my new employer," Ayuso said according to Nieuwsblad, after claiming both the final day's win atop the Malhão and cementing his final victory overall. And on a day when that new employer, Lidl-Trek, also captured the final stage of the UAE Tour thanks to Jonathan Milan, with seven victories to date the German squad can move into March and the main European calendar with the pressure already significantly lower than some of their biggest rivals.
