Athletic incorporates Joseba Elguezabal (Gatika, 44 years old), known for being Tadej Pogacar’s personal masseuse since 2019, to the work of the first team … in the structure of the UAE and a figure very close to all the successes of the Slovenian cyclist.
The striking operation causes Elguezabal to join the first team, where around six physiotherapists already work, to reinforce the structure. The man from Gatika has left the UAE team after six years in it and on Monday he joined his new duties in Lezama.
Behind this incorporation there is a proper name: Iñigo San Millán, director of High Performance of the rojiblanco club and main promoter of the operation. He knows the Biscayan masseuse very well because he signed him for the UAE Team Emirates when he arrived there as Performance Director.
Their close relationship has made it easier for one of the most sought-after masseuses in cycling to land in Bilbao. In fact, the sources consulted indicate that this option was on the table previously, but that it has only been able to materialize now. San Millán values Elguezabal’s ability to optimize elite athletes and establish a close relationship with them.
Since his arrival in the squad led by Joxean Fernández Matxin, Elguezabal has participated in all of Pogacar’s great triumphs. The list of achievements is impressive: 4 Tours, 1 Giro, 5 Giros de Lombardia, 3 Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Strade Bianche, 2 Tirreno-Adriatico, Tour of Flanders and Fleche Wallonne and a Paris-Nice, Dauphiné and Amstel Gold Race. He has only missed the two World Cups, where Pogacar works with the Slovenian Cycling Federation team.
The connection between the two transcends sports performance. “We have a relationship that goes beyond pure work,” Elguezabal has said on several occasions. The new member of the red and white coaching staff already knows Athletic: he worked in the youth team during the 2013-14 season, in the junior category. In that group was a boy named Nico Williams.
His career is as surprising as it is unique. In an interview given to EL CORREO in 2021, Elguezabal reviewed a life with unexpected turns: He was an amateur cyclist in the Sociedad Valentín Uriona team (Mungia) and worked for fourteen years as a nightclub bouncer (Congreso, Conjunto Vacío…) in Bilbao.
He resumed cycling thanks to a chance meeting with a mechanic who told him that the Seguros Bilbao team was looking for a masseuse. He signed up for an academy to get the title and after going through that amateur team he signed for Caja Rural. His friendship with a Colombian cyclist (SergioHenao) allowed him to jump to the UAE.
Memories of the Return
It arrived at the same time as Pogacar. «The first concentration was in Tarragona. The team was starting to get big and had signed cyclists like Aru, Dan Martin, Gaviria, Kristoff and Henao. “I knew Pogacar by hearsay because he had won the 2018 Tour del Porvenir,” Elguezabal recalled. «At the beginning we didn’t agree much. I was in charge of Martin’s massages. It was in the Vuelta a España when I started treating him and we became good friends,” he explained.
In his first season in the team, Pogacar, at 20 years old, amazed by winning three stages and being third overall after Roglic and Valverde. Matxín, from Basau, then director of the team, realized that the couple worked and gave Elguezabal the mission of being the Slovenian’s personal masseuse.
Since then he became her trusted man. “Where he goes, I am,” Elguezabal said in interviews. In the last season the couple was joined by a good friend of the champion, a Slovenian masseuse, who has worked with them.
Now, Elguezabal separates himself from cycling and joins Athletic’s Physical and Conditional Area department, directed by Aitor Ugarte, one of the five departments that are under the leadership of San Millán. The Laguardia physiologist arrived at the rojiblanco club in 2023. At the beginning he combined his work in the red and white entity with that of monitoring the performance of Pogacar, as well as that of another series of cyclists under his guidance, but a year ago he separated from the Slovenian star and works full time for Athletic.
