Beloki and his fall against Armstrong: what can and can’t

“When people stop me on the street, sometimes there is a common father or grandfather who goes with the child and says: You see? This is what fell. ” Joseba Beloki He still carries the stigma of his downfall at La Rochette, trapped in the unfortunate and charismatic lineage of athletes who are more mindful of what they didn’t achieve than what they did, what could have happened and didn’t. beloki collects three podiums in the Tour de France (2000, 2001 and 2002), but his memories, in the imagination of fans, began with the Tour unfinished.

They create that July 14, 2003 -day always symbolic for being France’s National Holiday-, on which Beloki, launched in search of the escaped Vinokourov, crashed into the bruised asphalt of La Rochette on his descent to the ninth stage. Behind him, hot on his heels, was Lance Armstrong, in a runner’s delirium. Mountain Biking, he suddenly embarkes on an ‘excursion’ into the countryside with an agile genius to prevent Beloki’s deadly fate from pulling him down as well. After the success of Iban May sa Alpe d’Huez the other day, it was an afternoon more insomnia than a happy siesta in Spain. Still today, the prisoners of rage, caught on that day whenever the month of July is seen, for some Basques are still lying on the ground. And they hope he can get up and continue the race.

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“In recent weeks I have had about 12-14 interviews. This year marked the 20th anniversary of my second place on the 2002 Tour, but all the interviews are about the one that Beloki put together ”, warned the former runner, with a definite tone of resignation, of talking to MD on Sunday afternoon in a reflection he shared several hours on Twitter. But he is not seen as the unconscious daredevil who ventured, but as a determined brave man who cried out on the Tour. who will go for him. There is no more, less, resentment of the people. Not to you.

“No, it’s cool and it’s comforting to me that people are reminding you of the crash, because what is appreciated is that I took the risk to win the Tour, in that year we wanted to be more aggressive to seek success. Whenever the anniversary is celebrated, autumn videos come out, but in my house it is naturally carried, My children are 15 and 19 years old. When this time comes I welcome it well, I want to join the Tour and follow it, I’m really looking forward to it starting. ” securing the former corridor of the mighty ONCE.

The scrambled Beloki, who had already sought out Armstrong by attacking him on the ascent of the unknown harbor to which he had given fame, broke his head of femur, elbow and wrist of right arm, though there was no pain like seeing the race where he was dying for his bones left forever, where he had some flirtation on the podium. If he doesn’t have the will to submit to the outcome, that is unfriendly dry land he buried cyclist Beloki when he had a month left for the golden 30 years for any runner: until 2007 -when he retired-, he no longer achieved any transcendent result that would put him above memory that. But his legacy, three drawers on the Tour and one on the Vuelta, this is equally important.

Now, as if inspiring a tombstone in memory of the autumn -and since 2010-, a wooden sign stands on the curve, like another place of worship for the Alps Tour: “Armstrong Passage, Beloki Falls” (“Armstrong pass, Beloki fall,” reads the sign. “I saw the fall again, but I still haven’t gotten back to that exact curve, although I was in the Gap (where the stage ended that day), which is only three kilometers.from there. But one day I have to go back, the same next year when they turn 20 ”, he pondered. “I was invited to the inauguration of the poster, the mayor called me, but after so many years, I didn’t feel like going there to take pictures with the crowd and the excessive noise of the Tour. when i go i want to do it alone or with my family, Beloki explained.

No matter how strong Beloki looks, how determined he is to challenge Armstrong, he continues to formulate the repetitive but innocuous hypothesis of whether the Basque was able to violate the mandate where Americans appear on the Champs-Élysées with yellow every year ( 1999- 2005). “What if I won that Tour? I don’t know, we go every day. A Tour is always hard, the only thing different in other years is that we like to fight harder than other years. There are more people with general classification options (like Ullrich or Vinokourov, who completed the podium in that edition) and that will help us ”, argues Beloki.

The relish of success of a melodious but challenging Alexander Valverde in the sprint before Armstrong’s very presence at Courchevel in 2005 as the most memorable victory of a Spaniard against a Texan in those years, there is still no soul in what can be celebrated. “We had contact armstrong these years once and yes we commented in the fall, but nothing more. I was glad he was saved and no one else came down, the cyclists were not selfish. That I just fell shows that it’s not a dangerous drop. The terrain isn’t nice, but I’ve already made another descent with wet asphalt, worse. I don’t think I risked too much, the tubular was removed, I fell after that ”, exposing the Basque with conviction.

Second on one of the Tours that Armstrong lost

Lance Armstrong was erased from cycling history after being removed from his seven Tours in 2012 for doping which he later admitted in the famous interview before Oprah Winfrey, The question arose whether the same history could be corrected, and as a second in 2002, name the Basque winner. But those Tours have no champion, though Beloki prefers not to evoke the past. “The classifications of those Tours are deserted, there’s no second or third, right now you can’t ask for anything. No one knows what happened there, we have no idea. And I, after so many years, don’t want to scratch anymore. “ Joseph’s explanation.

Released from recent jobs as amateur team director Cafes Baque and as a commentator on the Radio Euskadi Tour, the only -and exciting direct interaction Lazcano maintains with cycling is following his son on the junior team of Samuel Sanchez Academy. “Maybe from September I will do something again in the media,” he clarified. His three podium finishes in the 2000, 2001 and 2002 Tours and his top spot in the 2002 Vuelta were a luxurious inheritancebut, wounded in the tragedy of La Rochette, still worried about what might and never happen again, ardent devotees of Spanish cycling insisted on continuing mourning.