Just a few hours after the cycling return to Spain was forced to say goodbye to its 90th edition without final winner or podium ceremony, the director of the Spanish Round, Javier Guillén, has attended the media on the morning of this Monday to offer his vision of what happened this Sunday in the center of Madrid.
“I want to regret and condemn what happened during the last stage. Few comments are necessary. The images speak for themselves. Everything that happened is unfortunate. We cannot get anything good,” said Guillén, when he assumed the position after seven years in Unipublic, the company that organizes the test since 1979. A year before assuming the mandate, however, the promoter of the Tour de France, Aso (Amaure Sport Organization) bought 49% of the Spanish matrix. Six later, in 2014, the French company acquired the remaining 51% and the return then became a complete property of ASO, manager, in addition, races such as Paris-Roubaix, the Liege-Bastoña-Lieja, the Volta to Catalonia or the Dakar Rally.
“We are a cycling career. What we want to claim is that,” Guillén added; “We are sport and that is what we want to be., But just as we request respect for the demonstrations, we ask for respect for the career and our athletes.”
“The return position is clear. We are guided by the regulations of the International Cycling Union (UCI). Here the rules of participation are put by the ICU. It is to which it is responsible for establishing the right of sanction or exclusion during the careers. At all times we have moved in that legality. We have stayed there, we have not wanted to enter any debate,” said the director of the Spanish round.
Regarding the position of the UCI in recent days, Guillén has been clear: “We talked with them to make them see what the events we were living and to take position and the ICU took a position: he made a statement to keep the Israel Premier-Tech team in the race. something that would have affected Spain within the framework of international sport. ”
Before concluding his speech, half an hour and, in view of what happened, insufficient to answer all the questions of the journalists present, Guillén wanted to underline that “at no time” the possibility of canceling the last stage in Madrid, a day destined for the traditional Paseo de los Ciclistas by the capital, but with the general classification already decided. “We had meetings with the Government Delegation and we considered that the security cords that had been decreed were enough,” he said; “For that reason, the suspension of the stage was not considered.”
Finally, the director of the Tour of Spain has agreed of those who, he says, have promoted what happened this Sunday in the streets of Madrid. “Of course, that is the part that has made the most damage to us,” he said before clearing doubts about the start of the next Tour of France, which, also under Aso’s umbrella, will start in Barcelona next summer. “From this return, international entities will have to make decisions [sobre la participación de Israel en competiciones deportivas]but I am sure that Barcelona will have its departure and it will be a great tour. And the conflict in Gaza has concluded. ”
The final podium, in the parking lot of a hotel
After canceling the stage and the traditional podium ceremony this Sunday, all cyclists were transferred in the cars of the teams to their respective hotels in Madrid. It was there, in the parking lot of the Marriott hotel, and already with a closed night, when the visma-to bike, team of the, promoted an impromptu final party for many of the cyclists who, for their sports merits, would have had to take the stage in the central cyber square.
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This is footage we simply can’t keep away from you. 🎥🍿
This is why we love cycling.
An intimate, well-deserved ceremony for all the winners of this Vuelta a España! ❤️🚴— Team Visma | Lease a Bike (@vismaleaseabike)
Thus, on some refrigerators in which the numbers had previously been labeled as a podium (1, 2 and 3), Vingegaard, Joao Almeida, Tom Pidcock and other corridors – among them, the American Matthew Riccitello, member of the Y, for times, the best young man of this edition – received their respective tributes before the watchful eye of classmates, members of the different teams, members of the different teams. An atypical ending, but according to the protagonists themselves, festive after all.
