Published on : 05/05/2022 – 09:58
Richard Carapaz, winner of the Tour of Italy in 2019 while wearing the colors of the Spanish team Movistar, is the leader of the British formation Ineos. The one who was the first Ecuadorian rider to win a Grand Tour now dreams of a double on Italian roads from May 6 to 29.
Verona, June 2, 2019. There, on the banks of the Adige, an Ecuadorian runner writes history, in the city that served as the setting for the tragedy Romeo and Juliet of Shakespeare. His name: Richard Carapaz. Never had a representative from Ecuador won a Grand Tour. The one nicknamed “La Locomotora del Carchi”, the locomotive of Carchi, will finish the following year second in the Tour of Spain and third in the Tour de France in 2021.
Ecuador, not famous for the practice of cycling
The little boy born in El Carmelo, in the province of Carchi, will go down in the history of world cycling with three podiums in the three Grand Tours. His country, bordering Peru to the south and east and Colombia to the northeast, is not famous for the practice of cycling. Before him, Ecuador had only a few renowned runners. Inside the country, we remember Juan Carlos Rosero, winner of his national tour in 1986, 1989 and 1992. Before his death in 2013, Rosero was still Carapaz’s mentor.
But you had to turn to Colombia to see South Americans succeed on the old continent, like Luis Herrera, known as “Lucho”, who is undoubtedly one of the best climbers that cycling has ever known. Luis Herrera is still today the only rider – with Federico Bahamontes – to have won the mountain classification in the Tour de France, but also in the Giro and the Vuelta.
Since then, others have come to make their fortune in Europe, like Nairo Quintana, Egan Bernal, Rigoberto Uran, or even Miguel Angel Lopez. In Colombia, cycling is capable of uniting an entire country, like Brazil with football. In Ecuador, where a significant portion of the population lives below the poverty line, it’s a different story. There, Richard Carapaz, who cut his teeth on Colombian roads before coming to Europe, represents success. The one who got up at 5 a.m. to hand milk the family’s seven cows did not think that this childhood would lead to an exciting existence. And “Richie” gladly returns to recharge his batteries with his family as often as possible, and climb the Ecuadorian passes. Parents, friends and altitude remain a priority. He takes advantage of the tranquility and rides at an altitude of 3,000 meters.
Richard Carapaz and his dream of Europe
Today, the Ineos team trusts the reigning Olympic champion on the road in Tokyo to play for the final victory in the edition of the Giro 2022, which begins on Friday May 6 in Budapest, Hungary. “ We are all ready to win the Giro. Every “Grenadier” knows that this is the goal, we all have this in common and want to achieve it says Carapaz. Ineos has won three of the last four editions of the Tour of Italy with Britons Chris Froome in 2018 and Tao Geoghegan Hart in 2020, then the Colombian Egan Bernal last year.
Richard Carapaz, who crushed the Pan American championships in 2013, could have missed out on this magnificent career. When he moved to Colombia in 2015, where he raced for the Colombian team Strongman-Campagnolo-Wilier – he stayed with former professional Rafael Acevedo, also the stepfather of Miguel Ángel López – he became the first foreigner to win the Tour de Colombie espoirs. Hoping for a real contract, in 2016, only a small Spanish amateur team agreed to take it. He ended up attracting the attention of the Movistar team, and signed a contract as an intern in 2017. The year he also became the first Ecuadorian cyclist to run the Tour of Spain. In 2018, his name began to become known to the general public with a stage victory and a fourth place in the general classification.
The following year, it is the apotheosis in the streets of Verona with a coronation in front of the Italian star Vincenzo Nibali and the Slovenian Primož Roglič. In Quito, in the Ecuadorian capital, thousands of spectators gathered at the Estadio Olímpico Atahualpa for a public broadcast of the last stage. This feat will go down in history, waiting for the next one.
Carapaz, who did not race in April, reassured himself about his condition at the Tour of Catalonia at the end of March, winning the sixth stage after a 130 km river breakaway with the Colombian Sergio Higuita. In his quest for a second pink jersey, Carapaz will notably be supported by Australian climber Richie Porte and Frenchman Pavel Sivakov.