Jostling For Position: Insights and First-Hand Accounts From the Golden Years of Spanish Cycling

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Unlike other big riders, his ambition for the victory has driven him to expand horizons beyond the French tour winning seven Grand Tours: two Giros d’Italia, two Tours de France and three Vueltas a España.

The Tour demands everything from you" | Column "Surviving Le Tour". From 2015 copy and paste for 2016 https://t.co/KF0WK6drTl #TDF2016 PEZ: As the Vuelta stages tend to finish quite late and you have to write and/or edit photos and post articles etc. do you have time for the after stage fiesta’s? Or is it just that I’m getting too old for all that now? As you said, Belgian cycling magazine, CycloSprint, made a big interview with you this month. Did you expect it to be on the front cover with Fabian Cancellara? Every stage of both competitions will be available on Eurosport, discovery+*, the Eurosport App and GCN+ across Europe, with GCN+ also showing coverage in the Asia-Pacific, Middle East, and North Africa regions.The clothing brand, Rapha, becomes our title sponsor –a partnership that will last until the end of 2019. His last race has been a continuous sign of affection. His teammates have enjoyed every single kilometre of racing; the rest of riders applauded him at the start of the last stage in Arroyomolinos, and so too they paid him tribute at the finish in Madrid. In her new book, she focuses on the past two decades, capturing what she believes was the golden era of the sport in Spain. Alberto Contador, Alejandro Valverde, Joaquim ‘Purito’ Rodríguez, Óscar Freire, Pedro Horrillo, and Juan Antonio Flecha were at the forefront of this generation, and this is who Meseguer spoke to for the book. But she notes that she could have interviewed so many more, adding: “It’s a big, big generation because not only were there big stars, but the domestiques played a significant part in the many teams.” Difficult conversations It reminds me of how Alejandro Valverde took the the green jersey from Joaquím ‘Purito’ Rodríguez in the last stage of 2015 Vuelta a España, and the anger that followed toward the Movistar team. The love that people have for him, I mean, I work with him on Eurosport and I go with him to La Vuelta and I always tell him, I’m not going to walk with you because it is just crazy! It takes him about 15 minutes to walk 100 metres. So you see the passion that everyone has for him because in Spain, and what this book tries to prove is that, the cycling culture has always been around Grand Tours because it’s a country mainly of climbers. That is why Alberto is the big star.”

A fourth Tour de France victory for Chris Froome, meanwhile, showed a new side to the quiet rider, maybe a more human side. Related: "It's where we came from but hopefully it's in the past" Anna van der Breggen on how women's cycling has changedSheree: This year thanks to USADA’s ‘reasoned decision’ on Lance Armstrong the cycling off-season was uncharacteristically busy. A number of notable Spanish riders such as Miguel Indurain, Samuel Sanchez, Alberto Contador and Alejandro Valverde expressed their surprise at Lance being busted for a ‘non-analytical positive’. This wasn’t well received by the majority of cycling fans who’ve interpreted it as support for Lance. Can you perhaps throw some light on their reactions? She regrets that this was not the case with the RFEC (Royal Spanish Cycling Federation), though, who apparently not only did not make things easy for her but also discriminated against her. "I had so many duties and very few rights myself .” Among other things, she was summoned nine months after giving birth to a forty-day schedule away from home which involved travelling the world from one end to the other. She missed out on the support to travel with her child, something that the US Womens NBA does provide, for example. PEZ: In Spain we saw you on TV commentating on the Giro d’Italia, was that scary and is it something you would like to do more of? I remember his first ever stage win in a Grand Tour, during the time-trial in the 2011 Vuelta a España. It was our first hint at what was to come from a very talented young man.

The roads of the Tour were lined with fans who loved this year’s race and fierce critics in equal measure. The relative absence of high mountains and time-trials made for a more open race, full of questions until the very last moment, but I was sorry not to see one more stage in the mountains. As with everything, there is a moment in time when the older generation clears a path for those younger to fill its gap, and over the past few years there has been a changing of the guard for Spain’s professional cyclists. While there are riders such as Mikel Landa and Enric Mas stepping in for the now-retired golden era, they haven't yet replicated the winning streak that defined their legendary predecessors. However, two riders have been catching the attention of the Spanish fans – Juan Ayuso and Carlos Rodríguez. Aged 22, Rodríguez came fifth in this year’s Tour de France as well as taking a prestigious stage win. And Ayuso, only 20 years old, came third in last year’s Vuelta and second in this year’s Tour de Suisse. Meseguer personally attended Contador's press conference in 2010 when he was linked to the Operación Puerto case. Even with a few years now within the cycling industry, the book has provided her with the platform to unearth not only the hidden truths from some of these riders, but also the profound impact of doping on non-doping riders. She said, "Freire spoke about the numerous races he lost due to the advantage others gained through doping." It is precisely his style of racing. He is considered the best strategist by the peloton, and his way of transforming a hard effort to an easy tempo helps explain why despite his sanction after testing positive by clenbuterol at the 2010 Tour de France, the fans and the peloton continues admiring him, and indeed consider him a legend.

Me hace tremenda ilusión presentaros el proyecto con el que llevo soñando despierta desde hace más de dos años y en el que por fin me he aventurado esta temporada. A lo largo de todos estos años como periodista dedicada al ciclismo, me he encontrado a menudo con historias ajenas a la competición y al propio deporte que me ofrecían una imagen más completa de la persona con la que estaba hablando. Son historias pequeñas, "mínimas" como se titulaba aquella película argentina, pero que nos convierten en quienes somos y que generalmente sólo las conocen las personas de nuestra intimidad; no por ser importantes, sino precisamente por su sencillez y aparente carencia de interés. Es esa cotidianeidad maravillosa la que nos presenta, más allá de lo que dicten las piernas en competición.

There must have been tough moments, but he’s so humble, a normal guy. Of course, we will miss that. We miss that already.” A new generationI loved it,” Meseguer told Rouleur when asked about her first Grand Tour experience. “You had to be at the start village and the riders used to come there, and of course, as you don't know anything about the sport, you ask stupid questions, but they were patient to answer them. I was speaking to Paolo Bettini and I didn’t know him, so I’d ask questions like, ‘Oh, you are riding everyday?’ and ‘You are injured, why do you keep on riding?’ without understanding the sport. But there I discovered a sport, and a path in life.” A path not planned Operación Puerto commanded Spain's golden era, dominating the headlines for many years. Even today Spanish riders are penalised for others doing in the past, despite the sport being widely considered much more ‘clean’ compared to its history. A generation like no other During the year Meseguer was on maternity leave with her first child, a wave of Spain's celebrated cyclists, who had been integral to the country's golden era in the sport, chose to retire. “The guys I met from this generation were all retiring,” Meseguer said, putting her head into her hands. “It was a kind of grief.” Thanks to sponsorship from Science In Sport, we were able to provide daily coverage from the Giro d’Italia for the first time. Science In Sport subsequently became a long-term partner.