“A Jumbo-Quick Step merger? Not good for cycling”
The five-time Tour champion participated in the second stage of the Cicloturista to Ibiza along with Contador, Valverde and Pereiro
SAN RAFAEL DE LA CRUZ (BALEARIC ISLANDS), Oct. 14 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The five-time Tour de France champion Miguel Indurain stated that in 2024, at 60 years old, “it’s time to rest from the bike” and considered that the possible merger of Jumbo-Visma and Soudal Quick Step “is not good for cycling”, after participating in the second stage of the XX Campagnolo Cycle Tour Tour.
Miguel Indurain was the focus of the Ibizan round since he left his hotel in Sant Antoni de Portmany with his Campagnolo group in the direction of San Rafael, start and finish of the second stage, three laps of a 16.8 kilometer circuit and where he joined Alejandro Valverde, Alberto Contador and Óscar Pereiro.
“Is this going well? Or should I lift my foot?” Indurain asked those who followed him on the shoulder of the highway that runs through the heart of Ibiza, the island of the night that has completed its leisure offering with marathons, triathlons and mountain bike and cycle races to attract visitors outside of the summer season.
“How did I feel? We have been going at full speed from the start and on top of that this year there were young people who like to ride bikes and they have gone out in droves. At my age, I have to go at a pace. On the first slope I already I stayed and I didn’t see anything, just to enjoy the route,” he told Europa Press at the finish line.
With Valverde at his side, tall and skinny as when he retired in 2022, fourth in the recent gravel World Championship, Indurain believes that the controversy over the intense pace of the cycling ‘walks’ is not something new. “Well, it’s the usual bike war. There is always someone who walks faster than you, or you walk faster than someone else, and the one who goes a little fast always leads the other with the ‘hook’. There are gears that are competition and calmer ones. This is a bit of a mix, it has calm days and today it was time to go fast,” he summarized.
Regarding the ‘frustrated’ merger of Jumbo Visma and Quick-Step, which could bring together Jonas Vingegaard, Stepp Kuss, Wout Van Aert, Remco Evenepoel, Julian Alaphilippe and the Spanish Mikel Landaç under the same jersey, he acknowledged that there is not much going on the present.
“Now I don’t follow professional cycling much, I follow it a little through the media, but having a very strong structure is not good for cycling or for other sports. It is better that it is a little distributed and that you have 5, 6 or 7 teams that are at an important level and that can fight for races and put on a show,” he analyzed to Europa Press.
He sees Alejandro Valverde as “super strong” as he has demonstrated in the Cicloturista to Ibiza despite having ‘hung up’ professionally, and he places the Spanish peloton “at a good level, among the best in the world.”
“But, of course, winning at this level is very difficult. But they are doing very well: Rodríguez, Ayuso, Landa, Mas… They are there in the ‘top 20’ of world cycling. Then we have Movistar, who, after “After a few years with Valverde, he is in a phase of change and looking to the future. They are cycles. It happens in other sports: you have a good time, then those who are fighting there retire and you have to reinvent yourself again,” he explained.
“THE TITAN? I DON’T KNOW, TOO HARD”
After a year with many events and competing in the Titan Desert in Morocco, the toughest mountain bike event on the calendar, the Navarrese champion only thinks about “closing the year.” “In 2024 we’ll see. New things always come out. I try not to repeat myself. There are many events and I would like to try to do a little bit of everything,” he said.
In that calendar, in principle there is no return to the Moroccan desert. “I don’t know. Too hard, isn’t it? I’m already 60 years old next year. I have to rest. I’m not up to riding a bike, for challenges like that, so ‘heavy’, it’s already hard for me a little,” said ‘Miguelón’ , for whom Valverde, Contador and Pereiro were waiting again for another sepia photo, the one from the recent history of Spanish cycling.