Enric Mas’s crusade against the fear of falling and disappointing

It was a wound that hurt. In the press room of the Tour or the Giro, the Spanish journalists endured the jokes about the bad moment of their cycling. It hardly helped to remember that the French and Italians can’t take their chests off either, now that the Belgians, Slovenians, Danes or British are in charge. The three states that host the three most iconic events in men’s cycling sign to win a stage, instead of the overall. And state cycling had gone 668 days without a stage triumph in one of the three grand tours, a total of 121 disappointing stages until this Wednesday the Catalan Marc Soler won the stage of the Vuelta a Bilbao. Suddenly, the cross that burdened Spanish cycling seems to weigh less, and the seventh stage was won by Jesús Herrada (Cofidis) between Camargo (Cantabria) and Cistierna (Leon), a journey of 190 km in which he retained the red jersey of leader Belgian Remco Evenepoel (Quick Step). Herrada won the sprint over his breakaway companions, the Italian Samuele Battistella (Astana) and the British Fred Wright (Bahrain), in a stage with no changes to the general.