Enric Mas’s feet hold the key to the success of Spanish cycling

Talented cyclists are trained based on successes, but also based on blows and failures. Enrique Mas (27 years old) go to her room Tour de France convinced that he could do a great job, that he could beat his best result to date on ‘Big Loop’ (5th in 2020) and who knows if he can reach his third podium on a great cycling tour after two second places in The Tour of 2018 and 2021. But desires are one thing and truth is another, and the Balearic Islands of Artà will face the final week of the tenth race overall, 9’58 ”behind the leader Vingegaard almost seven minutes from the third step of the podium covering Thomas, Winner of the tour in 2018.

Clearly Enric Mas needs to change the chip in the last six days of the race, and as long as his head and feet are with him, focus on another goal, and it can only win one stage, in trouble. assume only Movistar. has five successes as a professional: the in Return to the Valencian Community 2021, alas dos Tour of Guangxi of 2019, and of those the return and the Iztulia in 2018. Freed from larger responsibilities, Enric must focus on filtering out a breakaway and fighting for a stage, chip change, click that not all riders perform effectively.

But the Balearic cyclist knows that if success is important to him and his morale, it is even more important for the team, which needs victories because of the delicate situation they are going through, with only nine victories and close to those. position in relegation that leads to loss of category world tourthe highest cycling division.

Reverse the Spanish cycling crisis

And then it will have the incentive to break the stressful drought that Spanish cycling is going through, not to mention the hefty number of nine cyclists registered for this edition of the Tour, the lowest number since 1972. By the end of the fourth Tour stage this year in Calais, Spanish cycling finished 100 stages without success in any of the three grand tours. The latter, the Ion Izaguirre in the sixth season of La Vuelta in 2020 at Formaland the last on the Tour is Omar Friar -absent this year-, on the arrival of Mende in 2018.

Being a good climber as he is, there are three opportunities at the end of the stage presented to him, the Foix, Peyragudes and Hautacamand in all of this Spanish cycling has left its signature: Luis Leon Sanchez at Foix in 2012, Alexander Valverde in Peyragudes also in 2012 and Javier Otxoa at Hautacam in 2000. It was supposed to be three on the wheels to be followed by Enric Mas who warned on the day off yesterday that “the Pyrenees stages in heat could be turbulent”, and that, despite his position on general does not eliminate. the podium. “I am very confident that quite a few of the 6-7 ahead of me will fall due to the hardness of the stages and the heat of the Pyrenees. The podium is far away, but I’m confident. We will have the opportunity to find a stage ”, he pointed out.