Pedro Delgado and the xenophobia received by Spaniards in the Tour de France in the 80s: "Africa starts from the Pyrenees down"

Pedro Delgado recounts his experiences in the Tour de France at the beginning of the eighties, recalling how the Spanish had a great sense of inferiority when they arrived at the race, something that began to change in 1983 when Ángel Arroyo finished second after Laurent Fignon.

"We always went to compete in France, we did it with a great inferiority complex, so it was very difficult for us to see ourselves as winners, something that began to happen in 1983. We always went to the races in France and all the Spanish cyclists said ' let's see where they're going to hit us because here we're only going to receive".

Perico, winner of the Grande Boucle in 1988, talks about episodes of racism against the Spaniards who attended the Tour in those years, something he did not accept:

"In France they didn't treat us well and I always remember a race when I was an amateur in the Pau area in the south of France. First when we arrived they told us 'Africa starts from the Pyrenees downwards', at that moment we thought ' What do these French think, these pimps?"

Perico Delgado told an anecdote from his time as an amateur when he went to a hotel and had an incredible experience:

"We heard these expressions but the worst came in an amateur race. We were four amateur teams in a hotel, three were French and ours was Spanish. We were waiting for them to give us food and we saw that they did not give it to us but that the three French teams if they served them and gave them food. We kept waiting and they only told us that they would serve us but in the end we were stunned since they refused to give us food. We thought, 'but we are only children and they don't want to feed us.' That memory was my first big unpleasant memory with the feeling that Spanish cyclists in France were treated badly and it really turned your guts."