This Tour is different from all the others because he made his debut at the age of 24 The Terrible ChildRemco Evenepoel, and he has arrived to make noise, to disturb the spirits of the usual rivals who had privatised the fight, Pogacar and Vingegaard, and to provoke the right-thinking with his praise of “balls” over intelligence. It is the new decline of landismo, perhaps, the philosophical cycling spell that has been imbued on the proud Belgian by his chosen squire, the Alava native, Mikel Landa.
Halfway through the Tour, which coincides with the passage through Bruère Allichamps, the town considered the geometric centre of the hexagon, three Spaniards are among the top 10 in the general classification: two youngsters (the debutant Juan Ayuso, 21, and Carlos Rodríguez, 32, in his second participation) and a veteran, Landa, 34, who in his seventh year in the Tour has a new job, a special job that perhaps he has invented, that perhaps only he can perform. He is no longer a leader, which he has been all his cycling life. Nor is he a team leader or a road captain, traditional roles in a team. His work at Soudal, alongside the fantastic debutant Remco Evenepoel, could well be defined as that of a lieutenant-nanny. Court advisor and man of action. All in one. “Yes, yes. I am happy. It is different from Movistar. “Here I am clear that Remco is the leader, and if I have to give up my chances I will do it to help him,” explains Landa. “On the other hand, when I was at Movistar things were not clear. It does not occur to me to go crazy with the general classification of this Tour. I was thinking more about a stage or whatever, but well, they are asking me for that and I am happy to do it.”
He advises him, calms him down, supports him, gives him affection and food, and when the road gets steep or the race gets difficult, he is there, by his side, on the front line of the fight. “Remco listens to me. He is a person who listens a lot, especially to people with experience, especially in times of stress or something like that,” says the Alava native. “You tell him, hey, calm down, stay here, and he stays. I also see that he is growing with the passing of the days, he feels good, he has confidence and he is starting to take initiative himself in some things, and that is good.” There he was in the Galibier, where only a cut caused by Almeida on the descent prevented him from accompanying his Remco to the end, and there he was on the white roads of San Fermín, swallowing the same dust and the same wheel skids on the gravel on the white roads of Champagne.
The fans analyse and understand, and applaud, and repeat to each other, hey, this Landa, he is having the best Tour of his life, he seems calm in spirit, a man with a mission, fulfilled. And Remco, who called him personally last summer when he began to build his team to win the Tour, does not spare praise. “Mikel is gold, a very important cyclist for our team,” says Evenepoel, who thinks so much of himself. “I get on very well with him. He shares all his experience with me and with the team. He is a great guy, very relaxed, always stress-free. I am happy to have him by my side.”
“I haven’t had to work hard yet, but I always have one eye on Remco and I forget a little more about myself,” admits Landa, a cyclist with a great ability to read the race, to analyse the movements of his rivals, to anticipate their intentions, to gauge his chances. “I’m in very good condition and it’s easy for me to be there. I can enjoy it, and as we know, being able to enjoy it helps a lot.”
Going against the latest trends in physiology (summed up in a provocative “stop starving yourself and losing weight, embrace calories and carbohydrates: without energy you’re not going anywhere”), Remco boasts of having lost a kilo of bum to better overcome the mountains without losing power on the flat, as he demonstrated by winning the time trial that placed him second in the general classification, and with his attacks on the gravel. He has Wednesday’s stage marked, the great crossing of the central massif through the volcanoes of Cantal and the finish in El Lioran, where only Belgians have won. In 1975, in the Tour that Eddy Merckx did not win, the winners in El Lioran were the demonised Michel Pollentier, who three years later, wearing the yellow jersey on the Alpe d’Huez, was expelled after being caught red-handed with a rubber bulb filled with clean urine in his armpit while undergoing an anti-doping control, and in 2016, Greg van Avermaet, who also wore the yellow jersey, a few weeks before becoming Olympic champion in Rio.
Landa will contribute, and in the evening he will talk and celebrate with his Remco and perhaps tell him that they get on so well, they have almost fallen in love, because there cannot be two more different people. The insatiable ambition versus the calm, the spirit already sated. “I am calmer than ever,” admits Landa. “It must be because of age, because of experience. I have practically already made my career. Whether I can finish fifth or tenth here is not going to change anything for me. Landismo is not going to change that. I have already created it. Maybe I could have won more races, been more successful, but I wouldn’t change it, I wouldn’t change it. When you read stories about cycling, about the past, about people you admire, they talk about their victories, yes, but really they talk more about the anecdotes, about what they have created and victories in the end are just a number sometimes. The important thing is character, personality, not all being square soldiers, standing out. In the end, it’s about trying to be yourself and enjoy it, no matter what.”
And perhaps in 10 or 15 years, already retired, the terrible Belgian, loaded with titles or not, will calmly drink a gin and tonic or a pint with Landa and, talking about the past, say to him, how right you were, my friend. And in the background an accordion plays.
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