All were smiles at the doors of the Movistar bus parked next to the San Mamés stadium. Was not eusebio unzuethe manager, because this Saturday his brother’s eldest son was getting married in Girona Juan Carlos, ill with ALS. On the other hand, the other bosses were there and they all seemed happy from their faces, from what Enric Mas said and transmitted, which were only good feelings. “Why can’t Vingegaard and Pogacar be achievable? & rdquor ;, repeated the Mallorcan runner, the boss and soul of the Telefonica group. And on the descent from the Vivero, 26 kilometers from Bilbao, the big blow was given. AbandonmentGoodbye to illusions, goodbye to everything.
Vizcaya, turned into a popular festival, put on his best cycling mask, adam yates he won next to the sanctuary of the Virgin of Begoña and dressed in yellow… and Further He arrived at the hospital to get some plates on his right shoulder. Long faces and almost wanting to cry, seven months of preparation in the trash to show that cycling is often a cruel sport. Six years before, in Düsseldorf, a similar thing had happened when at the first Alejandro Valverde he crashed into the fences of the time trial circuit and broke his knee so seriously that if it happens to anyone else, he hangs up his bike and dedicates himself to another matter.
In good mood
But he was in a good mood, optimistic and with those butterflies in his stomach that are so common when there are only a few minutes left before a Tour begins. And he even allowed himself to scold the journalist for not having greeted him a few days ago while he was being trained by Els Cortals d’Encampone of the toughest mountains in Andorra, where you live. It was explained to him that one had wanted to be discreet because he was working and preparing for the French round and that in full effort it was better not to disturb him. Nobody could guess what was going to happen.
He rode happily because he had already said that the Biscayan roads were like his Arta’s housein the north of Mallorca, where his parents live, and because in Basque Country Most of the races that serve as training for runners who, like him, who was younger, want to become professionals, are held.
The descent
On a descent you always roll at breakneck speed, easy at more than 60 per hour. They separate more because being glued to the wheel of the rival or partner is a considerable risk. He had already overcome that panic that led him a year ago to hire the services of a downhill specialist and sit down to talk to a sports psychologist. And it is that 2022 was distressing for enric. He fell on the descents of the Tirreno-Adriatico, the Itzulia and the Critérium of the Dauphiné. He came across the Tour, but in the Vuelta, which he finished second and which now becomes the objective of 2023, he was a different cyclist and the only one who later in Italy stood up to pogacar. He won it in the Giro d’Emilia and was second in Lombardy, beaten by the Slovenian phenomenon in the final sprint.
The precedent of 1989
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In the descent of the Vivero the wheels of Further and Richard Carapaz. Down. Those who were behind tried not to run over them and immediately a gendarme, one of those who helped the Ertzaintza, stood up to warn that there were injured runners. Yvon Ledanois, his director at Movistar, tried unsuccessfully to hide his anguish, he saw if it encouraged him. There was nothing to do. The white ‘jersey’ of Further he appeared stained with dirt and his face denoted pain, minutes before the Tour organization announced the abandonment, the first and only in the opening stage. A huge stick for Movistar… and nothing less than in the Biscayan stage.
unzue, until this Saturday, only one start of the Tour had been lost. It was in Luxembourg, in 1989The day that Parakeet, who was also his pupil, got confused, got lost in the streets and said goodbye to repeating the triumph of a year earlier in Paris. A drama that unfortunately overshadowed the great popular festival with a Basque Country dedicated to the Tour, a race that every year, for one reason or another, crosses like a black cat in the race of the Majorcan runner.