Juan Ayuso has rejected any notion that there could be a leadership "dilemma" at Lidl-Trek between him and Mattias Skjelmose, describing questions about the pair's cooperation as "ridiculous" at the Tour Auvergne Rhône-Alpes.
It came as a spiky response to being asked whether the pair had any answers about their cooperation and who could be the stronger of the two following their team's impressive performance in the stage 3 team time trial.
Lidl-Trek finished fourth on the day, 32 seconds down on the winners Visma-Lease a Bike, with their Spanish and Danish co-leaders crossing the line together and moving to fifth and sixth overall, respectively, as a result.
"To be honest, these questions are for me ridiculous," said Ayuso in the mixed zone before stage 4, as reported by CyclingProNet.
"We're both teammates, we're both here to help each other, and whoever is strongest will then put out the result. I don't see any dilemma."
It's a topic which dates back to before Ayuso even first put on a Lidl-Trek jersey as a new signing for 2026. Skjelmose described the addition of the Spanish GC star as "a bit of a strange situation" in September, saying he had been told Lidl-Trek "want to build a team around me" in years prior.
Lidl-Trek staff played it down, with Directeur Sportif Kim Andersen telling Feltet that it became much bigger than it ever should have, with articles being spliced together and comments getting lost in translation.
"It was put together in such a way that something was picked from one place and something from another, and some of it was poorly translated into English, and then it became a mess that ended up with something that wasn't very smart," said Andersen.
"None of them knew each other. They've been competitors until now, but that's how professional sport is. You're competitors until you're teammates. And it's about being able to adapt. It's going to be very exciting."
Ayuso was understanding at the time, too, knowing the drama which super team leadership can cause well from his time and abrupt exit from UAE Team Emirates-XRG.
"I can understand some parts of it. If the team has said, 'You are the leader', I can understand some frustration," Ayuso said.
"I can't say much because I don't know him personally. I'll have to wait and see what he's like because I only know him from the races."
Based on the pair's performance at the key pre-Tour de France form marker, they seemed to be cooperating very well, having moved well on from these late-season comments in 2025, which were almost a year ago now.
Of course, a 28.4-kilometre team time trial was never going to tell the full picture of how co-leaders may work together, but it had nonetheless placed them within striking distance ahead of the big trio of mountain stages which close out the race this weekend.
And with more firepower in the form of Mads Pedersen and Mathias Vacek to join the team at the Tour, the first stage in Barcelona is one where Lidl-Trek will certainly be contenders alongside the likes of Visma, Ineos, and UAE.
"Just the discipline itself is good to do, to get to know your teammates, how you work, and also from the car, everything, so it was nice. I think for the Tour we're really prepared after Paris-Nice, yesterday and a lot of training we've done," said Ayuso.
"We gained some time on some rivals and lost some on others. We're more or less there, in between. We're 5th and 6th on GC, so that's a good sign going into the weekend, but this race is super hard the last three days. Maybe it does make a difference, but it probably won't."
Ayuso and Skjelmose have 47 seconds to make up on yellow jersey Alex Baudin (EF Education-EasyPost) at Tour Auvergne Rhône-Alpes, and sit 35 seconds down on the Netcompany Ineos pair of Kévin Vauquelin and Oscar Onley, with Matteo Jorgenson 32 seconds in front. But they do have a slim buffer on the likes of Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and pre-race favourite Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM).
"30 seconds is nothing in the end, and I still think we can achieve a really good result in the classification," said Skjelmose to TV2, agreeing with Ayuso that the legs will ultimately decide who is Lidl-Trek's number one.
"I see us taking home a podium place. Whether it will be Juan or me, I don't know, but I'm quite confident about how we go into the last weekend, so it should be good."
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