{"id":433540,"date":"2026-02-19T04:57:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T04:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/433540\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T04:57:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T04:57:20","slug":"it-would-be-nice-to-start-my-season-winning-go-time-for-ayuso-in-algarve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/433540\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It would be nice to start my season winning\u2019 – Go time for Ayuso in Algarve"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Juan Ayuso kicks off his season in Portugal this week \u2013 he explains both how he\u2019s prepared and what he hopes to achieve\n <\/p>\n

After a few weeks of hard training through thin air on a Spanish volcano, Juan Ayuso\u2019s race bike awaits him at sea level. With altitude camps and winter miles steadily fading to distant memory, Portugal\u2019s glittering coastline sets the stage for the 23-year-old to begin the 2026 season \u2013\u00a0his first as part of Lidl-Trek.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m starting in Algarve because it\u2019s a really nice race that has a bit of everything. It has a time trial and doing a time trial in a new team is always different because those days are very specific and everyone likes it their own way. It\u2019s good that the team gets to know how I do it,\u201d Ayuso explains, a few days before he will pin on his race number.<\/p>\n

Algarve has some easy stages where I can just start getting the kilometres in the legs in race competition, then also has two hard days where I can get a good result. I think overall it’s a nice race and also has good weather for the start of the season with less risk of getting sick or suffering from the cold.<\/p>\n

There are a lot of things for the Spanish rider to get used to in a new team, but the last few months away from the chaos of the peloton and on training camps have allowed Ayuso to build strong relationships with his teammates and staff. It hasn\u2019t taken long for him to fit into the Lidl-Trek organization and acclimate to a new environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe image and sensations I get from everybody is that they\u2019re super welcoming. I think there are incredibly good people here who want you to be successful and thrive. It\u2019s great to know everyone is really part of the project and help the team to take the next step, I\u2019m really proud to be a part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

With a 19.5-kilometre time trial on the menu in Algarve, the Portuguese race is an opportunity to test out Ayuso\u2019s time trial set-up that has been optimised in the wind tunnel over the last few months: \u201cI\u2019m confident my set-up is going to be good but this is a chance to keep improving on those small details. Having the support of the engineers from Trek has helped create a really fast set-up and I had really good values in the track test.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the Volta ao Algarve marks the beginning of Ayuso\u2019s path to the Tour de France in July \u2013 the main goal of his season \u2013 the Spaniard states he doesn\u2019t want to put too much pressure on his performance so early on. This is the first in a number of building blocks with a focus on getting used to the logistics of racing with a new team of people.<\/p>\n

I think the first two races will be about the internal dynamics of racing in a new team and getting to know how everything works. Getting comfortable with that is something that I have to pay attention to, but to be honest I\u2019m not worried because everything\u2019s rolling super smoothly. I have no doubt that everything is going to work out when I get to the first races.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ambition, of course, is written in Juan Ayuso\u2019s DNA. Whether he is at the very start of the season or the very end, the 23-year-old has an insatiable hunger to succeed. It is this tenacity which has helped him achieve stage wins in the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a and Giro d\u2019Italia, plus GC victories in Tirreno-Adriatico and Tour de Suisse, so far. Volta ao Algarve is not only his first race of 2026, but the start of an exciting new chapter in Ayuso\u2019s career.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese last two years, I\u2019ve always started my season winning so it would be really nice also to continue that trend, especially this year to give this team what I think they deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Juan Ayuso kicks off his season in Portugal this week \u2013 he explains both how he\u2019s prepared and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-433540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}