Tadej Pogacar beats Van Aert in Montreal GP sprint two Sundays ago. Peter McCabe (AP)
From Wollongong reach Europe tales of greedy magpies attacking the deceptive shine of the helmets of cyclists chasing rainbows on Australia’s Pacific coast south of Sydney. In Wollongong and its beaches and parks, they talk about the showers and clouds her spring has brought and about the amazing Belgians and enemies, about Wout van Aert, the Tour’s most admired cyclist, and about Remco Evenepoel, the Emperor of the Vuelta and Liège and all the others, all cyclists except Jonas Vingegaard, who filled the year with their names – Tadej Pogacar, the phenomenon of the Tour and the Strade Bianche; Mathieu van der Poel, unbeatable in Koppenberg and Flanders; Biniam Girmay, the Eritrean who fought Van der Poel at the Giro before being knocked out by a Prosecco cap at a victory celebration; Julian Alaphilippe, the rainbow of the past two years, the king of the falls, Strade, Liège, Vuelta, in 22, and many French — are chasing and awaiting his wrath and the outpouring of his spirit. They speak of another spirit, the team spirit, stronger than their navel, they proclaim, and everyone looks on and ironizes, but who says they don’t understand each other when I’ve seen them drinking coffee…
It’s the World Cup. The race that will officially make who, among many, is considered the best of the year, if anyone. It’s 266.9 kilometers, six and a half hours, from 2.15am Sunday morning until dawn until 8.45am more or less (TDP and Eurosport), eight more hours in Australia, Helensburgh and Mount Keira in the first 62 kilometers and the remaining 205 subdivided in 12 laps of a 17.1-kilometer circuit, slides, freeways and a scary slope, Mount Pleasant (1,100 meters at 7.7%, with a pass at 19% according to Garmin of the corridors), planted in the middle.
In Portugal, people are talking about the future, about the amazing António Morgado, 18 years old, mustache and goatee, student of Nelson Oliveira and João Almeida, who finished second in the rain in the junior race after keeping a few seconds ahead of 18 kilometers, and only the German who beat him, Emil Herzog, reached him and the Spanish team does not talk about who else has been talked about in recent months, not about the phenomena Juan Ayuso and Carlos Rodríguez, who are absent because they and their teams They think more of other races like Lombardy and also don’t talk about Alejandro Valverde, the best Spaniard of the last decade whose retirement plans and those of his Movistar don’t go through Australia. Pascual Momparler, the manager, speaks instead of Marc Soler, the Catalan from the United Arab Emirates, who he says is going out and his spirits are up in the clouds after discovering his soul multiplies in his solitary escapades . “And his style, his form, has a lot to say on a track like this, where not only the track and the twelve times he drives over it make him strong, but also the permanent whip, with so many turns and slides” , Momparler analyzed by phone from Wollongong. “And look, Kazakh Fedorov won the U23 race while Marc Soler won the Bilbao stage of the Vuelta. Of course, the tactics will not be as practical in the pros with teams of eight and not five like in the U23, but we have Iván García Cortina who, when he passes the piste, can say something at the end … And, As if that wouldn’t be enough, Soler He’s a friend of Pogacar and the Slovenian can even tell him where he’s going to attack and it will be important because if Pogacar or Evenepoel attack we have to be vigilant because they don’t wait for anyone… “
They don’t wait and the fans wait for them and it’s going to be sunny and hot, the meteorologists announce and the fans remember Evenepoel, his style, his need to attack from afar, like in Liège, like in San Sebastián, Winning made him angry with Van Aert at the last World Cup, the one that should have become the Belgian apotheosis in the shadow of his University of Leuven, and it became his weeping and gnashing of teeth and the joy of Alaphilippe , who left alone . But the fans know that it will not be easy to repeat the scenario, that Van Aert, who has already featured on the tour, knows how to win in the sprint and how to win by attacking alone and far away, like Van der Poel also knows how to do it in both situations, and also Pogacar, near, far, blas and epi, as he recently demonstrated by beating Van Aert himself, the green jersey of the Tour, in the Montreal GP Sprint defeated, and like all champions of the new era of cycling, hyperactive, impatient, brave and daring, filling cycling enthusiasts with optimism and making magpies’ eyes light up.
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