2023-07-09 07:04:01
The Puy de Dome, in the heart of the French Massif Central, is an inactive volcano. He has been asleep for 35 years, since the Tour visited him for the last time in 1988. This afternoon it will erupt again. 13 kilometers of ascent with an average slope that exceeds 7% and a terrible final four kilometers, with a percentage that does not drop below 12%. There will be explosions, especially since it will be a ghost climb. deserted. No public.
The Puy de Dome has everything to call it a magical mountain. A dead crater, already clogged by green vegetation. A privately owned mountain. That is why the Tour cannot allow the public to copy its gutters. Nor will accredited journalists be able to access on their own and interviews at the finish line will be prohibited. All the teams have been warned that their cyclists, as soon as they cross the finish line, have the obligation to turn around and get off.
That is why the Tour hardly visits it. Thirteen have only been the occasions in which it has been promoted. Of these, a Hispanic cyclist has won five times and one more, the last time, one of ours has led the race: Pedro Delgado, in the Tour de France that he won. The first was Bahamontes in 1959, then Julio Jiménez in 1964 who was followed by Luis Ocaña on two occasions, 1971 and 1973 in which, like Delgado, he wore yellow. It is the volcano of the Spanish
The most iconic and remembered was the penultimate one, that of the 1983 Tour. That afternoon marked a before and after in the history of Spanish cycling when Ángel Arroyo won the time trial that ended at the top of the Puy de Dome followed by Pedro Delgado . A tremendous success for the then humble Reynolds team that roamed the Tour until that stage believing themselves to be second-class citizens, ignored by their rivals, and with that blow they became the center of all eyes.
The night before after dinner they went to see him and almost stayed halfway up. The access fence to the private mountain that is the Puy de Dome was closed. And the guard did not let them pass. Right in front of the car driven by José Miguel Echávarri, a van came up loaded with loaves of bread. They took advantage of the fact that the vehicle did have permission to accelerate and pass before the barrier came down and thus be able to see the colossus that they were going to face the next day and that would change the destiny of Spanish cycling.
“I was panicking because it was very hard,” recalls Arroyo, “it brought excruciating suffering. He closed his eyes because it seemed that my legs hurt less that way ”. This Sunday the Puy de Dome awaits Spanish cycling again to make it erupt.
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