Ruben Peris: "If the Volta wasn’t a World Tour it would be gone"

Five months have passed since the end of Volta. If you go back, what balance are you doing?

A very positive balance. Volta is the post-pandemic edition, the 101st edition, and we don’t know how the runners and the public will respond and we are totally, completely satisfied. It has been shown that as an organizer you prepare the race in one way and then it comes out in another, when they tell us that we prepare races with the mind of a runner or other, it is not true, we do it at the thought of cycling, then it seems to come out. Because we were so pleased with Volta, the podium was a great podium, with a big public every day, of course the last day in Barcelona, ​​on Sunday, the Montjuïc circuit was full, showing that the end in Montjuïc and at noon. is a hit. Our participation and how well we fought was also great, and the Salou-Cambrils stage I think is one of the stages we will see again in a few years, I think it will be a mythical stage.

And of the rebellion?

We took another step and I also believe we put it together. Participation has increased this year. More cyclists have come out and we think we’ve put it together and now we want to go one step further, and next year it’s going to be international (1.1), for still a day, which means more ProTour teams came (by regulation could range from 1 to 7 World Tour teams and all Continental teams, which until now was not feasible). We will have a bigger responsibility and we will change the route, we will continue to Sant Cugat, but we need to be more ambitious, and put the race on the calendar, although next year the date will have to change, due at the end of May of 2023 there will be municipal elections.

And that the uprising has more than a day?

Not for the moment. Next year no, later yes; The idea is that reVolta ends up being a women’s cycling event in stages, starting with two, three or four stages. We need to gradually.

Do you notice the increase in women’s cycling?

Yes, the truth is yes, both at the public and institutional level, but what we need to reach is more women’s cycling sponsors, whose sponsors believe in reVolta, many are already doing, and fewer We are slowly growing. Women’s cycling is as good as men’s and we need to make it more impactful. Men’s cycling is highly professional and women do it.

Volta was successful, but it didn’t rain as everyone wanted, there were those asking for time trial, mountain time trial, more mythical mountain stages …

When you show up on tour, there’s always someone complaining, but for seven days we do our best. I think there is nothing missing, that it is very well balanced. The chrono? These are opinions, but fixing them is very complicated, not because of us, but because you are affecting the territory. A test of time? I’m not saying no, but Volta was made thanks to money paid by towns that end up on the host stage. On the one hand is the subsidy from official bodies, on the other hand the income, meager, coming from advertisers, and the other is paid by the last stage of the population.

We must not forget the very difficult years that Volta went through.

I always say that Volta was a patient who was in the ICU and is now on the ward. It is true that we are in a good situation, the institutions are helping us, we think the ASO agreement has been good (until 2026). Thanks to television that we have reached the whole world, we continue to maintain our identity and our journey. We choose the route, we still have almost a hundred volunteers to continue the test and therefore the Volta continues to have its own personality.

And arrange another type of test, like a classic?

Let’s not fool ourselves, if you make a classic it should be ProTour, which is on the World Tour calendar and at the moment is impossible. Yes, I thought so once, but our goal now is to make Volta, keep its level and grow reVolta.

What will be the Volta of 2023, what can we advance?

The start was in Sant Feliu and the arrival in Barcelona, ​​we had everything in mind, but we couldn’t advance the route until we had tied everything together. We had a lot of towns that asked us to be the start of the stage, but we had to tie it all up, but yes, the route was almost done mentally.

Where will the Volta fixer not fail?

You have to try not to fail at anything and at what you fail at that you don’t notice. We need to resolve things quickly. For example, this year in Sonny Colbrelli’s accident there was a quick reaction, Volta’s medical services acted very quickly and efficiently and the cyclist himself sent me a message thanking me.

You have a year left as president of Volta, will you continue to lead the career?

Yes, I will run for another legislature (six years).

Your first year as president and director of Volta was in 2004, has cycling changed much?

Very much, cycling today is very professional and I am fit. It’s not that I’m doing better or worse, without the team next to me I wouldn’t do it, but it’s true that Volta took a long time to organize because everything turned out very much. professional.

When did Volta make the jump to the highest level?

Volta has always been on the UCI World Tour calendar, from the start, but it’s true that it’s been a difficult year. It was a success to be WorldTour from the beginning, because either you are in the highest category or you disappear and like everything, when we said being on the world calendar, there were those who did not agree, who preferred the small and club thing. , but otherwise we would have been lost.

What would Volta be without the ASO?

It costs a lot, we have to think that television rights cost a lot of money and we have to do it very well. Let it be clear that the ASO never proposed or changed the course of the Volta. On the contrary, what they do is some sponsors ‘brought’ them to Volta (their budget is one and a half million euros).