A simple “thank you guys” said in Spanish by Laurent Fignon can become a book decades later. Those words were kept in the journalist’s memory Juanfran de la Cruz, author of “The Vuelta a España”, the book dedicated to the Spanish race and published by Libros de Ruta within its “Chronicles on Wheels” series.
«I discovered that he spoke Spanish and since then I felt very close to him. It was like “you’re the guy who just won the stage there, and you’re thanking us.” Beyond its vinegary character, for which it was famous, to me It seemed to me that he was not valued as a cyclist and I loved it, he seemed super human to me. He was one of my favorite cyclists.», remembers Juanfran. They were other times, the early 80s, years that marked the relationship of the children of the time with careers. «My first memory of the Vuelta, possibly dates back to the Vuelta of ’83, which began to be shown on television on a regular basis. I have some flashes there, so to speak, then some more consistent ones come, in those years, in the 80s, a stage that ended in Leganés and that Pepe Recio won,” says the author.
«I discovered that Fignon spoke Spanish and from then on I felt very close to him»
It was a more artisanal, closer Vuelta. «Then, the goals and arrivals were not like now. Currently there is a sophistication, also because of the buses, a certain closure», explains Juanfran de la Cruz. “Those episodes, those visits to the race, those steps of the race wherever you were, the 80s, it is true that it was a closer race.”
A race that was seen on the radio. «José María García is fundamental, and is key to the Vuelta in the 80s“The Vuelta is largely what it is, from a conceptual and emotional point of view, because of the work he did,” says De la Cruz. Those 80s are very present in the pages of “The Vuelta a España”, a book more concerned with emotions than statistics, but above all a book that brings the reader closer to the key moments that the Vuelta has experienced in its 90 years of history and 80 editions. One of those episodes dates back to Juanfran de la Cruz in the 1979 edition, when the newspaper then called “El Correo Español-El Pueblo Vasco” gave up continuing to organize the race. The figure of Luis Puigthen president of the Federation, was decisive in allowing the Vuelta to be held that year, already with the help of Unipublic. “The arrival of Unipublic in ’79, in association with Luis Puig, is very relevant, especially because it lays the foundations for definitive modernization,” explains Juanfran.
«The arrival of Unipublic in 79 with Luis Puig lays the foundations for modernization»
Other decisive moments, for him, are the change of race dates and the entry of Aso into the shareholding. «The movement that Unipublic makes for 1995 is capital for growth, including the definitive push for the Vuelta. It was a very famous race within its borders, possibly it was also projected to the Hispanic sphere, but in other places the following was much less. And at the level of participation, I also had a lot of problems, because there was a lot of competition, there were some years in which the last days of the Vuelta and the first days of the Giro overlapped. And, of course, the classics. There were like two cycling realities in the spring and that was a problem,” he says. «Hein Verbruggen [presidente de la UCI] He decided to change the calendar, lengthen it, because he considered that it was too concentrated, and from the sponsor’s perspective it was a waste of time in the sense of position. We all do things wrong that as time goes by it becomes more evident that they were not right. There are others that were in doubt, and with the passage of time, sometimes you see that they were very good. And in the case of change of dates of the Vueltait’s like that. It must also be said that the Vuelta accepted what the Giro did not want to accept. If this were to happen at the current time, we would have to see what would happen with the Giro. Maybe they thought about it more,” explains De la Cruz.
«The Vuelta accepted what the Giro did not want with the change to September. If this were to happen at the current time, we would have to see what would happen with the Giro.
«Entry first, and with absorption later, ASO gives a career that was already consolidated an umbrella, and a springboard, a handleand a speaker, for its definitive international projection. In 70 years he left once from outside Spain, from Lisbon, and now he is going to leave three years in a row from outside Spain», says Juanfran de la Cruz. 90 years of history summarized in 332 pages.
