Giro 2025: Juan Ayuso exults in Tagliacozzo, Primoz Roglic returns to pink

Spaniard Juan Ayuso won the seventh stage of the Giro d’Italia 2025, which took the Carovana Rosa from Castel di Sangro to Tagliacozzo (in Marsia) at the end of a 168-kilometer route with a final climb. The UAE Team Emirates rider found the winning sprint in the last kilometer, narrowly missing out on the stage-jersey double shot: the pink tunic, which is back on the shoulders of Primoz Roglic (who in turn slipped it to Mads Pedersen) eluded him by just 4″.

In second, again by 4″, came Ayuso’s teammate Isaac Del Toro, while Egan Bernal of Ineos Grenadiers rounded out the day’s podium. Also in the lead group of riders were Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Italians Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek), among the protagonists in the finale with an attempted attack, Antonio Tiberi and Damiano Caruso (both of Bahrain Victorious).

The final climb to Tagliacozzo, a first-category climb of 11.9 kilometers at an average gradient of 5.6 percent, with peaks over 10 percent, proved decisive as predicted on the eve of the race: Ayuso managed right in the finale to find the decisive breakaway, while Roglic preferred not to respond, “settling for ” the newfound summit of the general classification.

The Giro d’Italia 2025 will continue on Saturday, May 17, with the eighth stage, starting in Giulianova, still in Abruzzo, and finishing in Castelraimondo, in the Marche region. It is, at least on paper, a less challenging stage than Friday’s, although the 192-kilometer route presents interesting possibilities to try an attack from afar.