2023-07-14 08:22:29
LUCAS SEZ BRAVO
Special delivery
Belleville in Beaujolais
Updated Friday, July 14, 2023 – 08:22
EL MUNDO lives from a Shimano assistance car, a few meters from the breakaway, the exciting stage in which the Cofidis rider achieved the second Spanish victory in this Tour
Izagirre raises his arms for the stage victory. MARTIN DIVISEKEFE Izagirre seals the second Spanish victory in the Tour
On the horizon, a jolt. Amid the roar of the public, the blow at the head of the fugue is intuited. Radio Tour roars: “Attack of Ion Izagirre!”. At less distance you can see the luxurious corpses (Alaphilippe, Pedersen, Van der Poel…) who is leaving the breakaway and soon we approach the pursuers, who look at each other astonished. In those poker game doubts and in the fang of the Basque of the You trust was the secret of the second Spanish victory in the Tour. Five years of waiting and suddenly two in a row. “Keep the party going”pronounces the hero of the day.
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“Many things happened during the final kilometers and it was all very exciting,” said the veteran of the You trust, seven years since his other triumph in the Grande Boucle, back in 2016, in Morzine. The demarcation of him came this time in the fifth and last port of the daythe Cross Rosebush, with more than 30 kilometers to go, the toughest of all. And I forged it in the descent towards Belleville in Beaujolaisexpert in these fights the brave Ion. “!55 seconds to Izagirre!”shouts the radio 15 minutes from the finish line, and the reality of the 67th victory of national cycling in the history of the Tour.
We travel aboard the blue car of Shimano through the mountains of the Rhne department. The Tour inside is an infinite and festive human corridor through which exhausted cyclists cross under the sun in search of glory. But it is also a motorized parallel world, gendarmes, ambulances, equipment, cameras and photographers, with the permanent soundtrack of the four helicopters that keep watch from above. Among all of them, guardian angels for cycliststhe Shimano neutral service.
Richard Vivien he drives with unfazed rallying skill. He meanders through the public in the ditches and sharp directives: “Now go ahead!”, “Now you have to slow down!”, “Make way for the Jumbo team car!”. Especially on the descents, his is a wild exercise, easily exceeding 100 km/h: Cyclists can never get on top or stay far away. In the back seat he travels Benjamin Glizehis sixth Tour, something more than a mechanic capable of changing a wheel for any rider in the peloton in less than 25 seconds. He, a native of Mont de Marsan, lives with pressure.
A Shimano motorcycle for assistance in the Tour.AFP
Because the main mission of the Shimano team – in total two motorcycles and three cars with six bikes each, 13 wheels, brakes, cassettes, tools...; but also gels and drums-, is that there is no panic. They have been doing it since 2001 and two years ago they replaced Mavic on the Tour. That if a breakdown, a puncture or any incident occurs at a critical moment where the team car cannot come to the rescue (when the distance between the breakaway and the peloton is too small, when everything is broken as in the mountain stages or in places where no one can access, as a few days ago at the top of Puy de Déme), they arrive with his mobile workshop and the temper of Benjaminthat the different components of each one are known (not all of them use Shimano, there are three teams with SRAM and one with Campagnolo) and the measurements of each rider in the peloton: by default, the bikes that he carries on the rack are with the shapes of the leaders of each squad.
last resort
They don’t get into action too much, but their concentration must be permanent. For example, in the 12th and electric stage yesterday it was not necessary. But when they do it is because there is no other choice. There they have to play with the nerves and tension of the damaged rider who sees how the race slips away from him, sensing if he prefers to change the wheel or if, to waste less time, a whole bike. They have to hit. “It’s the hardest part of our job”account Glize.
The Shimano neutral service car, during the stage.Leon van Bon | Shimano
It took time to settle for the escape of the day, 80 kilometers of pure battle, so the first hours we advanced to the expectation, a couple of minutes ahead of the race. They repeat themselves over and over again Van Aert’s attacks, but none curdle. Finally, in the descent of the third port of the day, with Van der Poel As a stiletto and the one who was going to be the final winner among the 15, the escapees open more than 40 seconds. It is time to position yourself. “Shimano ready!”. Domity’s motorcycles place and reposition the positions of the convoy with inexplicable ease.
There is not a meter of the route without spectators. At the summits, the corridors are harrowing, a real challenge for the driver. Festival towns are crossed and costumes, flags, caravans and banners of “Long live the Tour!”. There are young people, housewives, babies lined up at the door of her nursery and the elderly at her residence. The Tour is the national pride.
end of stage
We make the last kilometers accompanying the impossible pursuers of Ion. your partner Guillaume Martin awaits on the lookout, without giving a relay, the perfect blotter. The difference barely falls and despair spreads, especially among those who are created with options, Movistar Matteo Jorgenson (again at the gates) and the veteran Thibaut Pinot, favorite of the gutters, in his last Tour. There was no way they understood each other.
“It’s long, and you never know what’s going to happen, but I felt strong. I wanted to have enough income to that did not have a visual referenceHe”, admits the man from Ormaiztegi, who first remembers his daughter Iraia on her birthday, also the fourth in his celebration at the finish line has been for that reason. The peloton, led by Pogacar, has entered at 4:14 of Spanish. As of today, a national holiday in France, the Alps arrive, three stages for the anthological fight for yellow to continue.
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