Two Spaniards stood on the podium in Madrid where Juan Ayuso was the youngest to finish in the top three of a three-week race since 1904.
Remco Evenepoel lived two parties this Sunday. One in Madridwhen he was proclaimed the winner of the Vuelta at just 22 years old, and another in Brusselswhere the Belgian fans could see him through a giant screen on the podium to get excited listening to their country’s anthem, while he was rewarded for a victory that only generated any doubts when he dropped in the mountain stages of Jaén and Granada, a crisis that the cyclist attributed on Saturday to the problems caused by the fall he had suffered in Malaga.
The Vuelta repeated what was seen throughout the season and which will surely be common from now on. No ‘top5’ cyclist repeated classification in Giro, Tour and now Vuelta. Always different types and runners focused on trying a single feat a year. Evenepoel has been busy the last two months, living in Spain to acclimatize to the heat and to do everything necessary to become the new reference in his country for three week races. The Vuelta did not have a Belgian winner since 1977, with Freddy Maertens, and the previous one was none other than Eddy Merckx (1973), the rider with whom they compare this phenomenon who has been impressing in one-day classics since he was 19 years old and in one-week races, and that He almost killed himself in August 2020 when he fell over a bridge in Lombardy, an accident that kept him inactive for several months until he mistakenly returned to competition at the 2021 Giro, without prior filming, to end up abandoning the Italian round.
This generated many doubts as to whether or not it was suitable for three-week races. In the Vuelta he resisted, with ups and downs and above all with a very weak team, a Quick Steep, Belgian like him, but with hardly any troops to guarantee a cyclist who is fighting to win a three-week race. What will be the future of Evenepoel? Are you ready to fight Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar for the Tour? Were the problems in the Andalusian mountains really caused by its fall?
Powerful in the time trial
Every race is different. He has in his favor his power in the time trial but possibly with chained ports and before the great ‘monuments’ of the Tour, Evenepoel He still has to improve if one day he wants to aspire to arrive in yellow to Paris. In principle, as pointed out by the runner, next season will be oriented towards the classics – in 2021 he has won in Liège and San Sebastián – and the Giro, if not he returns to the Vuelta. The Tour, for now, would be parked.
“For now I don’t think about the Tournext year I’ll focus on one-day races and I’ll still prepare for the Giro”, stressed the cyclist who caused the division of sympathy among the Flemish fans; some for him and others for Wout van Aert, the ‘savage’, curiously the favorite of Merckx.
But this Vuelta has been the rebirth of Enric Mas, who gave the feeling after a Tour to forget that he had succumbed to the pressure of leading a Movistar in crisis, threatened at that time by category demotion, which does not guarantee next year’s presence in the big races, including the Tour, and now thanks to the points achieved by the Spaniard in the Vuelta they can already begin to breathe with some calm. “This podium comes at a difficult time for my team because of the points.”
Ayuso and Rodriguez
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Beside Evenepoel and of Mas, as third, Juan Ayuso walked, who became with 19 and 360 days the youngest rider to hold a position of honor in a Grand Tour since Henri Cornet (1884-1941) won the Tour with 19 years and 353 days in 1904. Since then it has rained, with two world wars, countries that no longer exist and until the end of the reign of Elizabeth II of England. Ayuso and Carlos Rodríguez, the other great young reference, seventh due to a fall that cut off their wings, aim for everything in three-week races. “Being on the podium is something incredible because I came to the Vuelta to leave only a few flashes of quality”.
A Vuelta ended, hit by the covid that withdrew 25 cyclists, and in which it will never be known what would have happened if Primoz Roglic did not crash in Seville and have to retire.
Stage 21 + HQ #LaVuelta22 (Final) pic.twitter.com/zEWr21Lupk
– Javier Gilabert C. (@tourdegila) September 11, 2022
Valverde’s party
Alexander Valverde said goodbye this Sunday to the Vuelta, the race he won in 2009. The Murcian cyclist, world champion in 2018 and with podiums in Tour and Giro, will hang up his bike this fall, although he still has to compete in the October classics, including Lombardy , which will be his last race, like Vincenzo Nibali, triple winner of the big three. Both were honored by all the cyclists of the Vuelta, this Sunday at the Las Rozas exit, by the rest of the runners, including Remco Evenepoelmaking them aisle with their bicycles.
The 42-year-old cyclist from Murcia escaped from the peloton with permission to also receive the tribute from the fans at the Madrid circuit and made the first lap alone, to the applause of the public. Valverdenext year, will continue in Movistar possibly with a position linked to public relations.