BarcelonaAt the Mas house, cycling was not a tradition. Beyond enjoying the stages of Miguel Indurain for television in the summer months, little. And now Enric Mas is the best Spanish cyclist of the moment and could become the best Mallorcan cyclist on the road in history. On an island where so many geniuses of velodromes have been born, from Guillem Timoner to Joan Llaneras, Enric Mas asks to step up to the hardest peaks in Europe and challenge the great favorite of the Vuelta, the Slovenian Primoz Roglic. In 2018 Enric Mas became the first Mallorcan to climb the podium of the Vuelta since 1948, when Bernat Capó, born in Muro, did so. No cyclist on the island had won a stage in a major race since 1976, when Antoni Vallori had done so.
The son of a doctor and a nurse from Artà, Enric Mas joined the Artanenc Cycling Club when he was 9 years old because a friend of his had signed up. The bike was a game, then. But cycling in Artà already had foundations. He had taken root thanks to the successes of Bartomeu Flaquer, a cyclist of the 30s and 40s, and especially with Miquel Alzamora, world champion in the Madison specialty in 1997 and companion of many years of adventures of Joan Llaneres in the velodromes of half the world. Thanks to Alzamora, at the age of 14 he had already entered the Technical School of the Balearic Islands, where he would become the protégé of the ex-runner Toni Colom, who understood that this boy with a shy face had champion wood. Then he was a slender boy, because, as he himself remembers, he liked to “eat a lot,” but with a very big heart. Not just on a personal level, in this case. He has a bigger heart than most, which allows him to perform better on the bike. Under Columbus, Mas initially seemed destined to go around the Velodrome, but it didn’t take long to make the leap to the roads, where he would be discovered by Fran Contador, Alberto Contador’s brother, the two-time Tour winner. Thanks to his advice, Enric Mas decided to give up velodromes and join the Contador amateur team. And he left Mallorca to seek his fortune in the shadow of Alberto Contador, with whom he would train hard for Sicily and the Pyrenees when he was still a 19-year-old. “We were filming and, watching it go up, I realized I had a lot of future,” Contador recalls.
At the age of 21, Enric Mas made his professional debut with Klein Constantia, a subsidiary of the Belgian Quick Step. And the first successes came, the Tour de l’Alentejo and the Tour de Savoie. In a year, it already went to the Deceuninck-Quick Step to debut in big races. “Enric puts a lot of pressure on himself. You have to learn to live like this. He is a very hardworking, methodical, sacrificed boy, who takes defeats badly. By conditions, we are talking about a cyclist who could aspire to win races, but we can’t add much pressure to him, he’s already under enough pressure “, explains Contador. At the age of 26, Mas is the leader of the historic Movistar, which bet on him when runners such as the Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz and the Colombian Nairo Quintana left his team. Between covid-19 and pressure, the first season was not a success. He now aspires to win the Vuelta, although Roglic seems to be one step ahead.
Mas lives in Andorra, to have his legs used to the highest peaks. But whenever he can he returns to Artà to be with his grandmother and his friends, who follow him with a caravan in big races like the Vuelta a España, where in 2018 he would surprise with the second position behind the British Simon Yates. In addition to a stage at the Coll de la Gallina, on those Andorran roads he knows so well, Mas won the youth classification and already made it clear that he had a great future. Now is the time to prove that the present is his.
And a good test will be the 14th stage, between Don Benito and the Pico de Villuercas. A stage through the short-distance peaks of Extremadura with two first-class mountains, the Alto Collado de Ballesteros and the Pico de Villuercas. And on Sunday, more mountain before the second day of rest on Monday. An ideal terrain for the attacks of a Primoz Roglic with two goals: get rid of the shadow of Enric Mas and regain a lead that remains in the hands of the amazing Norwegian Odd Christian Eiking (Intermarché), with 1 minute and 56 seconds about Slovenian. The second position remains in the hands of the Frenchman Guillaume Martin (Cofidis, Solutions Crédits), 58 seconds behind Eiking. And Enric Mas is 2.31 behind the overall leader, 35 seconds behind Roglic. Waiting for the moment to attack.
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