{"id":314967,"date":"2025-11-28T20:01:05","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T20:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/314967\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T20:01:05","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T20:01:05","slug":"what-he-did-with-ayuso-i-thought-crossed-the-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/314967\/","title":{"rendered":"What he did with Ayuso, I thought crossed the line"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thijs Zonneveld<\/a> has talked about Sylvan Adams<\/a> and his alleged involvement with NSN Cycling Team<\/a> and also the gap between Tadej Pogacar<\/a> and Juan Ayuso<\/a> which formed in 2024. He criticized the World Champion over his reaction to what happened at the 2024 Tour de France.<\/p>\n

“Over the past year, we\u2019ve seen him hit his ceiling in terms of what he can handle in one season. The most beautiful thing is always when he\u2019s beaten on his own merits, by the next generation,” Zonneveld said on the In de Waaier podcast on the Slovenian. “That\u2019s always the best, right? When the champion is finally defeated by those coming after him.” \u00a0<\/p>\n

Zonneveld is fully aware of the historical figure that is currently marking the sport and the 2020’s, however not everything is spotless with the rainbow jersey. “What he did with Ayuso, I thought crossed the line,” he says. Reportedly the rift that emerged between Pogacar and Ayuso was ultimately a meaningful part as to why the Spaniard departed the Emirati team.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

At the 2024 Tour there was a lot of discourse around Ayuso’s reluctance to work at the Col du Galibier, and with him later abandoning the race before the mountains with Covid-19, he ultimately proved to be far from a valuable teammate to Pogacar who ultimately won the race.<\/p>\n

The two have not teamed up once this year, and with Ayuso also having serious Grand Tour goals<\/a>, matching him with Pogacar was simply not logic in the three-week races and put another obstacle in his way. “Over the past two years, you see that ego surfacing a lot more. But if we\u2019re comparing him to Armstrong, of course, there is absolutely no comparison.”\"Juan<\/p>\n

Ayuso at the Kigali World Championships. @Imago<\/p>\n

Sylvan Adams and NSN Cycling Team\u00a0<\/p>\n

Zonneveld also spoke about the ‘new’ NSN Cycling Team, which took over the license of Sylvan Adams. Initially, it had been said that Sylvan Adams would no longer be having his role in the team. However in recent weeks, speculation that he is involved with the team grows stronger and stronger as no-one has denied his presence in the team.<\/p>\n

And the team’s last-minute salvation may have been aided by the Israeli billionaire, who was virtually pushed out of the sport due to his pro-Israel rhetoric and the use of the team for what many term to be sports washing for the Israeli state.<\/p>\n

“That party cannot possibly have enough money to take over the full sponsorship. It strongly looks as though Adams has very close ties to the Swiss investment bank, and that his stake in the team is still running through that bank,” the Dutchman said.<\/p>\n

“At such a late stage, it\u2019s incredibly difficult to find a new sponsor \u2014 especially for a team that\u2019s been under so much scrutiny. The only way is for Adams, as a billionaire, to cover a large part of the bill himself. But how long does he still find that fun, paying for all this while he\u2019s not allowed to claim anything or project a political message anymore?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thijs Zonneveld has talked about Sylvan Adams and his alleged involvement with NSN Cycling Team and also the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,171886,178027,85,86633,6494,178026],"class_list":{"0":"post-314967","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-juan-ayuso","12":"tag-nsn-cycling-team","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-sylvan-adams","15":"tag-tadej-pogacar","16":"tag-thijs-zonneveld"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}