In Moser’s legend, Roubaix is an essential place
History is capricious, as we have often said, and we place runners in our imagination in a facet that, although true, is not the only one that clothed their legend, it happens with Moser and Roubaix.
That’s why when the most popular image of Francesco Moser is that broad cyclist, deep gaze, black hair, angled face and burly profile.about the groundbreaking machine with which he broke the hour record in the altitudes of Mexico City, is just that, a facet, an ideal profile, a way to remember a runner who was much more and achieved much more.
Moser also has a Giro, that of 84, a career marked by the multiple influences that contributed to an Italian winning against the insolent youth that was awakening from Laurent Fignon, who was clearly the moral winner of that race. Hostile crowd, helicopters pushing the time trials,… Moser had to win civilly or criminally. He so he did it.
But there is a third facet, known although perhaps less by many, the classic ones, and that is that Francesco Moser, This cyclist with an elegant bearing, aggressive riding and tremendous ambition, has no less than six monuments in his record.: three Roubaix, two Lombardies and one San Remo, a haul that places him among the best ever, especially in the Hell of the North, where only De Vlaeminck and Boonen surpass him.
In fact Moser is the third best cyclist in the world on the sharp cobblestones chaining, and that is difficult, due to the unpredictability of the race, three consecutive winsachieved at a time when the classics had great names of all time, although especially one, Roger De Vlaeminck, the one they called the Gypsy, who never had friends, not even on his own team.
So things in the Roubaix of ’78, Moser, rainbow on his back, rainbow that won in Venezuelawas presented to “Monsieur Roubaix” as a winning alternative to the best race of the year.
The Italian, smart as hunger, played his tricks without waiting for instructions from the big boss. He made two attacks, first at 23 from the finish line and then at 18 to break the resistance of Maertens and Raas, while the influence of De Vlaeminck was noticeable.
Moser arrived at the velodrome alone and De Vlaeminck breathed fire. “This guy is ungrateful,” he spat. through that mouth that did not leave anyone indifferent, like when he said that Boonen’s four Roubaixs had less merit than his own.
Cabred, The gypsy changed teams, knowing that his time, although glorious, was outdated compared to the work of young Moser..
The Belgian at Gis, Moser at Sanson.
In 1979 another Roubaix would beat him by hand, leaving him second, symptomatic.
A year later Francesco would renew his crown in hell after reacting to a long-range attack carried out by Thurau. Moser dragged his shadow, De Vlaeminck, and Duclos Lasalle. He would end up leaving them. It was the third.
But if Roubaix was the focus of his feud with De Vlaeminck, Lombardy was another of the heads of that thousand-headed hydra that was her relationship with Giuseppe Saronni.
In a rivalry that for Italy was to revive the times of Coppi and Bartali, Moser and Saronni began their enmity from the moment they ran the world championship together, making everything they competed into a corral of sickly roosters.
In that climate, Italy was racing between the seventies and the eighties and in that climate Moser took two Lombardies, one of them ahead of Hinault, and San Remo, entering the Via Roma alone, after deploying all his wisdom in the descent of the Poggio.
2024-04-11 13:57:34
#Oier #Lazkanos #classics #stone #future
