Image of the Jumbo during the time trial that opened the Vuelta. /
The Slovenian team, Jumbo, wins in Utrecht, places Gesink in the lead and distances Carapaz and Evenepoel by 13 and 14 seconds, and Landa and Enric Mas by more than 40
Primoz Roglic learned ski jumping, her previous job, to be a spring. Like one of those dolls that if you hit them they stand up on a spring again. He falls in the Tour and gets up in the Vuelta. It’s his usual trip. You see him on the ground, beaten to a pulp, and suddenly he’s on his feet. It seems that setbacks make him even stronger. He can not over and over again with the Tour and does not stop accumulating Laps. In Utrecht, in the initial squad time trial of this edition, he made it clear that he is going for fourth place. And he, a grateful leader, allowed his teammate Robert Gesink to cross the finish line first in front of his enthusiastic and massive Dutch neighbors. The Jumbo, the army that conquered the Tour, has begun to invade the Vuelta. In Paris he went with Vingegaard and on his way to Madrid, with Roglic.
It is always good to be in good company. Also in cycling. If buffaloes like Dennis, Teunissen, Harper and Affini roll on your team, you feel like you’re in a stampede. In the Jumbo, in addition, there is a herd of technicians sharpening every detail. That chance barely has space. And if, on top of that, a leader who does not hesitate, as determined as Roglic, is added to that scaffolding, the equation usually balances. That happened in the 23 urban kilometers, wet bits, from Utrecht. They say that this university city is the brain of the Netherlands. The Jumbo is the central computer now in cycling.
In little more than twenty minutes of total effort, Roglic distanced everyone: Ineos de Carapaz and Carlos Rodríguez left 13 seconds. Fourteen lost Evenepoel (Quick Step). The others have already given up more than half a minute: Simon Yates (BikeEchange), at 31. Almeida and Ayuso’s UAE, at 33. Hindley’s Bora, at 41. Landa’s Bahrain, at 42. Mas’s Movistar and Valverde , at 43. The Astana of ‘Superman’, at 46… And the EF of Urán and Carthy, at 1 minute and 19 seconds. Nothing was known about Roglic after the accident in the Tour that dented two vertebrae in his back. It is already known that he is in good company for his fourth consecutive victory in the Vuelta.
Utrecht, the only city that has seen the Tour, the Giro and the Vuelta come out, was a party. The Jumbo’s. That of Roglic and that of Gesink, the long 36-year-old Dutchman, former winner of the Mountain Circuit in 2006 and unfulfilled promise of cycling in the Netherlands. His story is written, like Roglic’s, with everything against it. He was short. He was not good for sports. At the age of 12 he gave the growth spurt and found that his lack of ability was less noticeable on a bicycle, the most used vehicle in the Netherlands. He entered Rabobank as a great hope and did not deliver. Too many falls. Time forced him to become a gregarious, essential for leaders like Roglic. The Slovenian paid him in Utrecht by giving him the first red jersey of this Vuelta. He pays his loyalty.
When Barça won the ‘chrono’
Nobody wants the team time trial anymore. It has almost disappeared from the calendar. It is complex in its preparation and beautiful in its development. It forces teams, technicians and riders to work together, with precision. How to order the cyclists in the queue? How many seconds to throw each one by relay? Who handles curves better? How to prevent the strongest from drowning their less gifted companions? The Tour and the Giro have been forgetting this specialty and the Vuelta has not taken it out of the chest since Torrevieja in 2019. But it is a specialty to claim. Even for history.
It has been in the Vuelta since 1942, since the fourth edition. It was a poor race in a broken country after the civil war. The organizers asked the football teams for help to set up cycling structures. That’s how the ‘yellows’ of Deportivo de la Coruña and the azulgrana of Barça signed up. There were also formations sponsored by commercial brands, such as the ‘garnets’ of Michelin and the ‘incarnates’ of Cinzano… Nobody in Franco’s Spain dared to create a team of ‘reds’.
But that edition, like the previous one, was won by a victim of reprisal, Julián Berrendero, who after winning the ‘queen’ stage of the 1937 Tour and returning to Spain after the civil war, was arrested and transferred to the Espinosa de los Monteros. A year and a half locked up in miserable conditions. A sergeant got him out of there. “I thought they were going to shoot me,” said Berrendero. And no. The military man, a former cyclist, knew him, idolized him. And he blurted out: «Julián, you’ll be hungry… Make him a couple of eggs with potatoes!».
Berrendero earned his living since he was a child collecting pigeons on hunts. He became a cyclist in illegal races. If he won them, he got paid. Survivor. In the spring of 1941 his license was returned to him and he won the Vuelta that year and also in the following one, which premiered the team time trial. That stage was disputed between La Coruña and Santiago de Compostela, 63 kilometers long. He beat Barça, but not even that prevented the dominance of Berrendero, the ‘black man with blue eyes’.
This was the first team time trial of the Vuelta. In the last one, Gesink has dressed as a leader with the permission of his boss, Roglic, the champion who always gets up. Especially in this race.
