"What message are we sending?" - Equipo Kern Pharma director angry at decision to leave team out of La Vuelta
Cycling
The Vuelta a España announced this Friday its three invited teams to participate in the 2025 edition of the Grand Tour: Caja Rural - Seguros RGA, Burgos Burpellet BH and Tom Pidcock's Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team. In a major surprise, the organization of the grand tour left out Equipo Kern Pharma, winner of three stages last year.
The Spanish team was the best Pro Team in last year's La Vuelta, with three stage wins (two by Pablo Castrillo and one by Urko Berrade), in addition to multiple top 10s by Pau Miquel. Logic invited to think that they would return to the race this season, but it won't be like that.
The disappointment is considerable within Kern Pharma. In statements to Radio MARCA, the team director Juan José Oroz acknowledged that the announcement caught them off guard, and did not hesitate to question the decision of Javier Guillén, maximum of the Vuelta a España.
"We are disappointed and concerned about the message that is being left," Juanjo Oroz began by forcefully pointing out. "Let's try to digest this. We won three stages in the 2024 edition... What message are we conveying to the young people if after that we don't go to the next Vuelta a España?" the Kern Pharma director insisted.
Even so, the director of Kern Pharma, after questioning the announced invitations, wanted to avoid criticism towards the Vuelta a España and Javier Guillén himself: "I'm not accusing anyone. But we've done it perfectly and we're not here," Oroz said. With riders such as Urko Berrade and Iván Sosa in their ranks, a wildcard would also be justified over the team's quality this year - even after the departure of Pablo Castrillo.
For Spanish cycling, the decision may be considered by some as worrying for the future. After all, the ProTeam teams in this country have a much lower budget than others in their category, such as Q36.5, Tudor Pro Cycling Team or Uno-X Mobility.
😢 Profundamente decepcionados por no poder regresar a La Vuelta a España después de lo vivido en 2024
— Equipo Kern Pharma (@EqKernPharma) April 4, 2025
💚 Gracias a todos por el apoyo y los mensajes de ánimo. Sois nuestro motor para continuar trabajando pic.twitter.com/0LxjtxrjBD
Just in
Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter today!
Popular news
Latest comments
- Impressive and surprising, well done. Go for it more often please.Mistermaumau10-04-2025
- Good choice of profile picture by the way :-)Mistermaumau10-04-2025
- Bolt was an outlier, for some people it can’t exist. Funny thing is 3 generations later, a lot of amateurs reach the level the average pro had. Ok, maybe counting from today it might be 5 or 6 generations because we won’t all have access to the equipment and staff and assistance pros now need to perform.Mistermaumau10-04-2025
- Actually, I’ve not noticed that fans have even noticed results are provisional so as far as the sport itself goes, I wouldn’t worry too much. Obviously some riders will miss out on celebrating but then these days, they’re all paid so well that it’s quite a small price to pay. Andy Schleck certainly didn’t get to party like he was used to when he received Alberto’s trophy and titles, nevertheless, he’s in the books and I’m sure he feels like and gets treated like a tdf winner. CATCHING dopers is good for the sport, though at the moment I’d have no idea who to go looking for.Mistermaumau10-04-2025
- Someone like David Walsh, who was the point person in the Sky Team coverup? When there was money and fame in bringing down Armstrong, he went for that. Then he sold that crusader image to Sky. And then renounced them. The guy has made more money from athletes and doping without ever once competing himself, having to take drugs, or even stand for a single principle. He is no different than Novitzsky, who was pivotal in the Armstrong investigations, and helped put Marion Jones in jail. Now he is full-time in the coverup business for the UFC.
Barney10-04-2025 - Do you think that making results provisional for 10 years makes for good sport? Or in any way remotely fairer, or safer?Barney10-04-2025
- Christian Scaroni, Clément Champoussin, Harold Tejada, Simone Velasco ... Peripheral riders who have failed to make much impression so far in their carrier, suddenly starting to win everywhere, climbing with the best in weekly WT races. Aging riders years after their prime, now seen more often than none at the head of the peloton in the classics. Still, no what is talking about the Chinese candies in the roomBM10-04-2025
- It's easy to dismiss doubters. We need someone like David Walsh who dares to ask the hard question. In the mean time, I wouldn't worry too much about Tadej. Whether he dopes or not, at least, he's not a terrible person like LA Doper.
KerisVroom10-04-2025 - Pogi is an outlier. You cannot prove an outlier using the statistical data of average pros. If he releases the data, it will only cause even more suspicion. In 2020 TDF he was dropped by Roglic in the mountains. So how does he do the TT where in the flats he nearly beat Tom Dumoulin and beat everybody else on the climb by a ton. No matter what Pogi is too much of an outlier which can be proven by dataabstractengineer10-04-2025
- Sorry? Have you not noticed how many winners and others have been cancelled post event, not least from the Beijing and London Olympics? If that doesn’t qualify for practice generalisation in sporting procedure, what is, we’ve even gotten to the stage of pre-emptive barring under suspicion of possible doping. If you’re going to look at a problem like this seriously, don’t just look at what makes media headlines in the parts you pay attention to. There is probably a wiki list (very long) of athletes who were disqualified for substance irregularities post event, and each had the opportunity to their long and costly process to defend themselves, it just doesn’t make the news unless you’re already a megastar (in which case you’d be extremely stupid nowadays to risk it, but then again, many people, especially in sport, fall in or close to such a category.Mistermaumau10-04-2025