Post a Comment Print Share on Facebook
Featured corrupción Crímenes Turquía Petróleo Feijóo

Óscar Pereiro: "It's one of the best participation laps"

"I think someone under 25 is going to be competing in La Vuelta".

- 12 reads.

Óscar Pereiro: "It's one of the best participation laps"

"I think someone under 25 is going to be competing in La Vuelta"

MADRID, 19 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The former Spanish cyclist and winner of the Tour de France Óscar Pereiro predicts that in this edition of La Vuelta 22 there will be "some young person under 25 who will be competing", a race that will have "incredible participation" and in the one that hopes "that no special measures will have to be taken" due to the fires.

"I think some young man under 25 is going to be competing in the return leg. There you have Hindley (BORA-Hansgrohe), you have Evenepoel (QuickStep) or you have Carlos Rodríguez (INEOS Grenadiers)," Pereiro said in an interview with Europe. Press.

The Galician highlights that this year La Vuelta will have "an incredible turnout". "Despite the fact that Pogacar told us that he is not going to be in La Vuelta Ciclista a España, we could be talking about one of the best Vueltas in terms of participation in recent years", he stated.

Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) will try to repeat a victory that he has achieved the last three years. "I think that Roglic is a runner who supports a lot, he is a runner who really likes our race, he dignifies it, for me it is the milk that he does everything possible to come. What I had never heard is that a good runner says who goes to the Tour to prepare for La Vuelta, that for Unipubic has to be the host", commented Pereiro.

"I remember the words of Chris Froome, who won the Tour four times, but who loved La Vuelta because it is the race where he discovered himself, and Chris Froome every time he came to La Vuelta was to dignify it, and that Roglic does the same is the host. And Pogacar himself, who is not going to be here this year but I know he really wants to come here," he said.

Faced with a possible new victory for the Slovenian, Pereiro believes that it will be good or not for the race "depending on how he wins it". "We will all remember the battle two years ago with Carapaz on a day-to-day basis. Well, that Vuelta is obviously won by Roglic because he is the best," he added.

However, he believes that "the nice thing is to break the forecast" like what happened in the 2020 Tour. "It was 'come on, everyone to the beach that Roglic wins this with one leg' and suddenly you get up from the towel and see that Pogacar won and you say 'what happened here'. Or what happened this year. That gives the race much more spectacularity and follow-up, but when a rider wins races like Roglic wins them, with that passion and fighting so much in the day by day without being so superior, I wouldn't mind if Roglic won five", he sentenced.

In any case, Óscar Pereiro is clear that "The Vuelta Ciclista a España never disappoints". "We can have more or less figures, I don't know what Guillén and his team do, they are capable of making a route so that La Vuelta is decided on the last day, and that is very, very complicated," he assured.

For the winner of the 2006 Tour, it will be a lap that will have to "contribute knowing how far riders like Carlos Rodríguez go." The promise of Spanish cycling "is one of the cyclists" that everyone expects "to fill that gap a bit in the grand tours."

In this edition, the Spanish round will begin and will dispute its first three stages in the Netherlands, "a country that is a fan of bicycles and cycling". In his opinion, this circumstance "affects the staff, directors, mechanics, masseurs, press and the organization itself more" than the runners, who "do not notice it at all".

"The cyclist enters a bubble the moment he leaves his house and goes to the Tour or goes to La Vuelta or the Giro d'Italia. You enter a bubble, they pick you up at the airport and you don't care what take you to Holland, Belgium or Taiwan, you have to train, take care of yourself and prepare things," he said.

One of the potential problems of La Vuelta will be the heat and the fires that are ravaging Spain this summer. "I remember in La Vuelta in Córdoba, days with 45 degrees, I mean that it is extreme heat, that the people who come here know that heat exists, that it can hurt, but hopefully no special measures will have to be taken", Pereiro recounted.

For Pereiro, it would be ideal for La Vuelta to resemble the last Tour, although they are not comparable races. "I don't know if we are going to have the level of the Tour on a day-to-day basis, but I am convinced that La Vuelta a España is going to be competitive because I no longer think it is just the Tour de France, I think the Cycling has evolved in its way of competing, I think that this dynamic that we have already seen in the Tour can continue to be seen in La Vuelta a España", he sentenced.

Óscar Pereiro, who retired from professional cycling in 2010, now acts as an ambassador for different causes, such as Ecovidrio. "If I miss my role as a cyclist, I would tell you that at times. Not at first, because you end up saturated. It's not that every year more, you do feel nostalgic about what the atmosphere of a team is like in a grand tour, the camaraderie, the dinners, the meals, the good moments. Obviously when you put yourself in the part of suffering, of pain, that things don't work out, well, I don't miss anything there at all and I prefer my role as ambassador more", commented.

Pereiro explains that, as a cyclist, "you always suffer", but when you do it "being in front is a beautiful suffering that encourages you". "If you're fine, running any race is very nice, if you tell me 'hey, would you like to be Wout Van Aert? Would you like to be Vingegaard?' , dreaming is free, I already fulfilled my dream at the time, so that for other people. I would not see myself competing right now, "he added.

Right now, as part of Ecovidrio, he finds himself with initiatives such as the 'green platoons', which he considers "a hit". "The number of volunteers who want to sign up simply to join us and clear the goals of the stages that and simply because they want to do all this, because they are more sensitive than other people to taking care of the system. The Vuelta a España is what makes all this generates the feeling of knowing that you are contributing something. It is very cool, I know a lot of things that you did not know before, "he declared.