INTERVIEW | Italian legend Claudio Chiappucci on his rivalry with Induráin and that of Pogacar and Vingegaard: "Theirs is much weaker"

Claudio Chiappucci, Italian and world cycling legend, has kindly agreed to chat for a while with CiclismoAlDia about his career and his vision of cycling today. The transalpine, great rival of Miguel Induráin in the early 90's in Tour de France and Giro d'Italia, is very present in the Italian media today and has a very clear vision of cycling that he lived in the eighties and nineties and now.

'El Diablo' won 3 stages and 2 mountains jerseys in the Tour de France, as well as finishing second in 90 and 92. In the Giro he was also second twice behind Miguel Induráin (91 and 92) and won 3 mountains jerseys. He was undoubtedly handicapped by the large number of kilometers against the clock in the grand tours of his time. He also won Milano-Sanremo in 91 in a very distant attack, perhaps his most prominent victory ever.

In the interview he talks about Miguel Induráin, how the long time trials favored the Navarrese rider, and the great '3' rivalry he had with him and his close rival Gianni Bugno. He is clear that comparisons are odious and believes that what they experienced in the early nineties has nothing to do with what Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard are experiencing today. He also analyzes the Slovenian's chances in the next Milano-Sanremo.

He talks about his mythical breakaway in Sestrieres in the 1992 Tour de France of more than 200 kilometers or his incredible Sanremo attacking from far away in Turchino. He is critical of today's courses and the lack of epic races due to the control to detail of everything that happens in the sport. Here is what he told us in CiclismoAlDia in collaboration with the El Contraánalisis podcast:

"My father was the culprit, he liked the bike, when I was 14 years old he gave me a bike and thanks to him I started the path that we later saw later."

FIRST YEARS AS A PROFESSIONAL.

"I started in '85 with Carrera and with them I went all the way, a decade, until it was over. It was a good team, very well organized. I liked it because it had a program like I liked, always talking with the manager we could always prepare races also in winter, cyclocross, I had freedom of decisions. I had many offers from other teams. I was very close to signing with Polti and Festina, before the problem (Festina case, ed.). Banesto didn't call me. That was impossible," he joked. "I had very good relations with Banesto (current Movistar Team, ed.), with Miguel [Induráin] but we were rivals, something that was very good for cycling, which enhances it, the public loves them."

"It's a different rivalry than mine with Induráin or Gianni Bugno. We had a rivalry throughout the season, there were not just moments... In classics, Grand Tours, the World Championships... In these moments we were all 3 rivals. At the moment the rivalry is weaker, they are not all racing the same programs. The rivalry is only in the Tour. We almost always had the same program. We started in the Giro, the Tour, the World Championships, the classics. Longer rivalry season. Being a rival to 3 is more complicated than 2. I compete with Miguel, with Bugno, they also compete with each other, it was a war of rivalries".

"I had relations with Stephen Roche when he was the leader and I was a young rider just arriving and then it was the other way around, he was my teammate who helped me a lot and I was the leader. That has been a great moment, to go from having a leader's partner to a domestique one. It was natural. I had a good relationship with him. Climbing mountains, the experience he had was also very important for me".

"At Milano-Sanremo I was ready. That's why I had a partner with me. We talked that there was a chance to go down the Turchino in the lead, it was raining, it was easier to attack and break. Then I was lucky that there were important riders who worked on that breakaway. My teammate helped me a lot.

"Sestrieres (mythical stage of the 1992 Tour de France in which he attacked 200 km from the finish, ed.) was another story. It was in the team's program to win, but not like that. It was prepared differently. The attack should have been later. It came naturally. I was with a small group. Another story through the earpiece. I was ahead with a group and the peloton didn't see me. As there was a chain of climbs, I had another teammate ahead of me and I tried to see how the situation was. It came out by chance, not because I had tried to attack from afar. Stages like this are historic, they come naturally, not because of a program".

"I'm from a different kind of cycling. As a cyclist I liked the long stages, personally I felt better, with more elevation gain, with more mileage, where the difference is more noticeable. There were also long time-trials that there are not now. I would like to see long stages, at least one like that, a real queen".

"Miguel was the greatest in the time-trial. Miguel didn't lose many long ones. He gained a lot in each time trial, he took a lot of time from us. Then I thought about how I could recover those times and I only thought about attacking from afar. For me it was not only important to win stages, but also to win the grand tour. It's not easy to attack from a distance, but it was the only way I could try.

"Miguel was a cyclist who never got nervous, he was very regular, very balanced, always with a perfect team by his side, who worked very well and there were stages against the clock. He had two individual stages and one team stage, he was lucky. That penalized me. Physically, never mentally, I was always thinking about how to do it. I was looking at him to try to guess how he was doing to attack him or not."

"They are talking about extraterrestrial, doing the Cipressa at an exaggerated average, but they talk about it as if it will be easy to do it, we will see if it will be possible. Everybody knows what they're going to do. Everybody knows. They already know. We'll see what's going to happen

"It's difficult with one-day race riders like Mathieu van der Poel, it's not like climbing a mountains, it's small hills that they are able to do."

"I never had a nutritionist, it was a figure that didn't exist. I raced more races than they do now. I had between 90 and 110 race days a year. When you race a lot you have to eat, you don't have to diet. Normal diet: pasta, meat, what everyone knows. It's not like now. Now they are thinner. They race less, but they are thinner. And it will continue to change.

"We are in a completely different era, the technology has changed, the racing, the strategy. Cyclists are different. When one like Pogacar attacks, he goes. Everyone knows that, it's not a surprise. One like Miguel now I see it difficult. A time trialist who climbs the climbs well, I don't see it. Today the time trials are short, in Miguel's time they were more than twice as long, 70 kilometers. I'd like to see today's riders going to 70 km time trials or Miguel today to 30 km time trials".