"The time has come for Enric Mas to show his quality and be with the best on the Tour"

The general manager of the Movistar cycling team serves to MD before the beginning of Tour de France. Eusebio Unzue confident in your team’s performance and Enrique More sa ‘Great Loop’, acknowledges that they need greater economic capacity to be more competitive in the market and expresses concern about the possibility of losing the category by the end of this season.

How is this Tour planned?

So far, there is quite a bit of uncertainty that we have experienced in recent days, with the proliferation of Covid cases and waiting for it to stabilize and we can be more calm. And in sports, we’re excited about what the Tour means for our structure. We arrive with a leader (Enric Mas) who we consider time to jump in and be with the best in the race.

Has the anti-coronavirus protocol changed much in the Tour?

So far there is no news, but the coronavirus has forced us to make some small changes to the staff and to some runners. We need to adapt to the weather. They need to let us know what we should do in case we have any unforeseen or Covid infection.

Enric’s renewal Before the Tour should serve so that he and the other group can run with the necessary calm.

In fact, we had already done this a few days before. We thought it was a good time to end things and have more peace of mind, knowing that we have someone we believe is capable of leading many of the team’s big goals and also on the Tour. Hopefully also, most of all, he will be honored by bad luck and he can show the quality he has, that he will help us have a great Tour.

A fate that escaped him in the run-up to the Tour.

Yes. He’s not the luckiest, but it’s drawings. Logically, when all the falls came they were uncomfortable, but fortunately it wasn’t serious and he did his calendar and preparations. We hope to salvage all of these shortcomings in the first week of the Tour.

One quality of Enric Mas is that he usually goes from less to more in his performance.

There are riders who accuse him more as the stages go through and fortunately Enric Mas looks like a man made for three-week races. He had a good mind, he worked and maintained his progress over the years. He is developing well and we believe he has the ability to lead the team and fight with the best.

How far do you think Enric Mas will go on this Tour?

Right now, the important thing is that it gradually goes on and it continues to improve, achieved with experience and maturity, with the security that a person gains over time. I consider that Enric is already in an ideal moment.

What will be the goal of the Tour team, to try to fight for the podium with Enric, to go to the stages?

Stages are common goals for everyone. Logically we really want to get the best possible result. Enric Mas’s strength is regularity, since normally in the process of the stages he is a man who recovers perfectly and this is what a more solid and regular cyclist is doing every time. I hope this is repeated this year and Enric has seen the reward of podiums also on the Tour and why not some success in his sporting career. We trust that you qualify for it.

Can you face the Slovenian power on the Tour?

The fact is that with the boom in Slovenian cycling, Slovenia seems to be a country of geniuses thanks to the great athletes they have. It is also part of the appeal of this sport, that talented runners have appeared in countries historically none of them. They live in a period that lasts for five years, and may last as long as five or ten years. It’s something very interesting and both Roglic and Pogacar are great references on grand tours.

Do you think you can beat Pogacar on the Tour?

In 21 days a lot of things will happen, there will definitely be opportunities, we have already seen this in the year where he won the last trial against Roglic in 2020 and last year we also saw that he himself is struggling with Mont Ventoux, which we have hardly seen until now. It has quality and it won’t stop being beautiful from one year to the next, but in 21 days so many things are happening … also with this Tour designed so that there is more than enough to happen. Roglic and Pogacar are clearly the two big favorites, along with Vingegaard and to see the Ineos block. Until we get to the Alps we won’t be able to rearrange the real possibilities of racing.

This is your 40th Tour, has the race changed much in all these years?

We will say that the meaning of what the Tour is maintained. I remember with awe that some of the teams that had been there over the years had alerted us, so in our first year (1983) with the Reynolds team the Tour seemed like an insurmountable goal, but we, I do not know. why, I know if because of our own intellect, the truth is we go and come back with a podium (2nd Ángel Arroyo). I have always believed that that debut was the race that marked us, that marked the way we understood our cycling. It is true that over the years the alternatives follow each other and cycling, like everything in life, is not immune to the various evolutions that take place over the years. Now it has nothing to do with it. It’s pretty much the same, but behind all the teams there is a good structure, more professional, to go faster. But the Tour is a 3,500 -kilometer race, where the Alps and Pyrenees are permanently climbed each year.

And, are you thinking about taking a step to the side and having someone else take your position?

I think and I hope. It will come like everyone else, fortunately, we have the support of our sponsors, which is important, and also of the runners to be able to continue competing in Europe or the world. The fact is that the current level of demand to do the same as before you need to have a lot of things, forcing you to multiply the structures and everything became more professional, so that performance was the best possible, which means having for involve many more people, but luckily I am surrounded by a very good group of people.

Talking about signatures for next season, how do you want to strengthen the squad?

It’s a ritual that is repeated every year, it also depends on the goals, the leaders you have, and you’re looking for the perfect profiles for it all. Now we have a very extensive calendar and we have to deal with the departure of Alejandro (Valverde) with a certain weight in 20 years and the team has to adapt to this new role. We have many riders that we completely trust and hopefully as much as possible one of them will imitate my friend Alejandro.

What kind of broker are they looking for?

It’s true that this year also haven’t had too many riders released, and on the other hand it’s pretty calm that we’re at the moment serving as a consolidation under Enric’s leadership.

Was it true that there were negotiations for Richard Carapaz to return to Movistar?

As you can imagine, this is one of the few things on the market and it has many new ones. In fact, we are one of the brides, but we can’t and we have to move on.

There was talk that they were ending the inclusion of a second sponsor on the team allowing them to be more competitive in respect of other teams.

We already have a budget, but the evolution of cycling has certainly caught the attention of major sponsors. And to get a high-level squad you have to make a more important financial effort, which is why we are trying to get a second sponsor to help us become more financially powerful and join us to be more ambitious.

This year there has been a lot of talk about the promotion and relegation of teams and Movistar is in the danger zone if it doesn’t do its homework well.

It’s true that we’re one of those teams that could eventually go down, it’s a fact. This is a bit of what has happened to us and with this system applying we need time to pass to see that the system can straightforwardly improve and it will definitely improve. The pandemic likely affected all teams, but there were some riders and teams that affected them more than others.

Do you think this is an unfair system, that the same points cannot be awarded to a Giro victory as Carlos Verona as another in the lower category?

This shows that the current system is improving very well and I am sure that the UCI is paying attention to this, and I am sure that the experience will serve to have a better system in the future.

Do you think Movistar will suffer more than necessary for maintaining the World Tour category when this year ends?

Suffer, it will suffer, in fact we are already suffering, but I am confident that this streak of bad luck will get rid of, which at the moment is preventing us from being in a more comfortable position, but that is the way things are and Career . Hopefully after this series of defeats and after this soon.