Spanish cycling legend hits at disappointing year for Juan Ayuso and Carlos Rodríguez: "I expected a little more"
Cycling
Pedro Delgado participated yesterday in his native Segovia in the traditional Carrera del Pavo (Turkey Race) and before that he spoke to the media. In statements collected by EFE, the winner of the 1988 Tour de France gave a review of the situation of Spanish cycling and men like Juan Ayuso or Carlos Rodríguez.
Thus, he sees it very complicated for Spanish cyclists to win important races due to the presence of riders "who are at another level, such as Tadej Pogacar, Remco Evenepoel, Jonas Vingegaard, Mathieu van der Poel or Wou van Aert".
Delgado gives the key to why the aforementioned cyclists are stars who have given another dimension to the sport: "They are true stars, because in modern cycling, where everything is controlled and you always had to attack the last pass, this generation of riders has arrived who attack at 100, 80, 60 kilometers from the finish line".
He equates them to the great classics of epic cycling of the sixties and seventies, where great feats were also the order of the day: "Those of us who are cycling fans are in luck because we have rediscovered epic cycling, from the era of Eddy Merckx, or Luis Ocaña, when everything was more individual. We are grateful that they have such a competitive mentality because it makes the races much more fun".
On the route of the Vuelta a España which was presented last week, 'Perico' was sympathetic: "It's very typical of this Vuelta, with many summit finishes and very nervous stages".
Finally, he spoke about the two most exciting riders for the future of Spanish cycling, Carlos Rodríguez and Juan Ayuso, who, despite achieving important victories in 2024, disappointed him a little: "I expected a little more from them this year".
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- i don’t know nearly as much about bruyneel or hincapie as most of us do about lance, but we judge people by the company they keep. i hand no idea what psychological problems the other two have, but there’s gotta be something pretty severely wrong with them if they continue to choose to be close to armstrong.OCexile26-12-2024
- Ayuso and Rodriguez are only 22 and 23. Don't pressure it as they're still so sooo young.
James2631826-12-2024 - Not sure that can be true, in that USA Cycling is part of the UCI.acem8226-12-2024
- Oh, and yes: I am no psychiatrist/psychologist, but Bruyneel and Texas Turd are both sociopaths. It goes well beyond "protect my world and anyone would" that is the usual zeitgeist of their bullshit. No normal person has Bob Roll go at Greg Lemond with an audio recording device at Ron Keifel's bike shop...for example.EricJensenRidesBikes26-12-2024
- Funnier: this website keeps giving credo to their ramblings. In this case, why in any possible way would Boonen want to create a fantasy world to attach himself to these two clowns when more likely he would want to forget he was even there? Laughable.EricJensenRidesBikes26-12-2024
- A sociopath is an informal term used to describe someone with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), a mental health condition characterized by a chronic pattern of disregard for social norms, laws, and the rights and feelings of others.EricJensenRidesBikes26-12-2024
- Rowe spent his whole career on one team being nothing more than a thug for Skyneos. I have no idea why another team would want import this type of person into their program.Sweep26-12-2024
- “CyclingUpToDate would like to extend it's condolences to family and friends of Pascal.” Paging a copy editor….menk26-12-2024
- yeah, that’s a more fair assessment. “reaching mathieu’s level” doesn’t mean you’re planning to replicate his whole career. the former IS doable, potentially. it’s just the latter that likely is not.OCexile25-12-2024
- That’s not entirely true. Every person follows their own development path and peaks differently. Remco and Primoz had hardly started cycling before elite level. Jonas was pretty much under the radzr until he unexpectedly had to take over responsibility at JV. Some guys only get real good in their thirties others have peaked mid-twenties. You can’t tell in advance how and upto what level they will progress, obviously his career might not have MVDPs length but nothing says he could not end up doing a few seasons at his level.Mistermaumau25-12-2024