Things are going very well for UAE stars Pogacar and Ayuso: "Juan won Romandie time trial at 65 to 70 percent"

Pogacar crashed hard in Liège-Bastogne-Liège and broke his wrist. "The schedule for Tadej after Liège-Bastogne-Liège was to have twelve days off for optimal recovery and then start again on the rollers. That's going well, the doctors are happy with the rehabilitation so far," said a cheerful Matxin.

Pogacar's big goal is the Tour de France, where he wants to go for his third yellow jersey. "I have 0.0 doubts that Tadej will be number one in the Tour for us and for the cycling sport. He is hungry, as he has been all season. That's why we've adjusted his program to be less monotonous and to look for challenges."

Ayuso is even more on track. He struggled with a nagging tendon injury in the first few months of the season, but made his season debut at the end of April in the Tour de Romandie. "Juan is currently doing great, he has the fitness to race. We had to understand exactly what was happening in his body, why his injury kept coming back. When he went full throttle, it went wrong. He is building up through training now and in principle, he will not race much in the coming time."

Nevertheless, he was already in pretty good shape in Romandie, despite Matxin denying it. "He was at 65-70 percent there. I couldn't believe it when he won the time trial on day three. That victory was purely due to hunger. He lost five seconds on the climb, but took all the risks on the descent to still win. He gained 25 seconds on the downhill, on adrenaline, and knowing that he hadn't been able to race all that time."

Bram van der Ploeg (Twitter: @BvdPloegg)