In the Volta a Catalunya, from March 20 to 26, Ecuadorian cyclist Richard Carapaz took 51st place in the general standings, with a time of 28 hours, 53 minutes and 44 seconds, in competition with Jefferson Cepeda, his compatriot and teammate from EF Education. Easy Post, was twenty-fifth. And even though it is Locomotive Carchi He stood out as the most combative competitor of the race, with 151 points his final ranking was far from predicted. The champion was Primož Roglić.

Then, at the Tour of the Basque Country, things didn’t improve for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic road champion. A tough finish, with the peloton cut short by a crash a few meters from the finish, saw Carapaza out of contention for the previous Wednesday’s third stage. The EF team had Carapaza as one of the options to win the fifth round of the Basque tournament, but carchense withdrew due to an allergy.

“The directors of Education First have decided that you should get off the bike, rest and prepare your next goals,” the newspaper reported. Brand, from Madrid. In two races, which are part of Carapaz’s preparation program for the Tour de France, luck was not in favor of the Ecuadorian.

‘Worrying news’

According to the specialized portal Ciclismo Colombiano (www.ciclismocolombiano.com), in a note that appeared last Saturday, “Carapaz has not yet started his process with EF Education-Easy Post in the best way.” The analysis mentions that the tricolor “arrived with the intention of going to the Tour of the Basque Country 2023”, but that “the Ecuadorian driver must start improving his performance; it has cost him so far. It was far in Catalonia, and now in this competition the EF confirms the worrying news”.

The coffee website adds, regarding what the star cyclist did in the Basque race, that “it was expected to see a slightly more persistent Carapaz at the front, in the Itzulia Basque Country stage, which goes to the general together with other candidates such as Jonas Vingegaard, David Gaudu, Enric Mas, Mikel Landa, Daniel Martínez (another worrying case), among others”.

And although the predictions were different, the reality was complicated for one of Ecuador’s best athletes of all time. “But it wasn’t like that. Although it started with some strength, as the days went by (Carapaz) deflated until he once again handed over the leadership job to Rigoberto Urán, but what happened? EF Education Easy Post has confirmed that the one from Carchi withdrew due to illness,” says Ciclismo Colombiano.

‘strong leader’

But, apart from possible bad results, Carapaz is seen as an option to always climb to the top of the podium. The newspapers confirm this. Postfrom Bilbao. “The Ecuadorian is troubled by his ‘bad luck’ in Itzulia but retains unwavering faith in achieving victory in Paris,” reported the newspaper, which headlined its note with a sentence from Carchense: “I am here because I will come to Bilbao to win the Tour.

Iván Benito’s laudatory note highlights Carapaz’s athletic fitness as follows: “He is halfway between mortal and alien. Since 2019, when he won the Giro d’Italia, every year he has been on the podium of someone big, but Ineos did not see him as a candidate to win the Tour, which they crave after the serious falls of (Chris) Froome and (Egan) Bernal”.

It is added to Post that “unchangeable ambition Locomotive CarchiWith weak attacks, he has joined Education First until 2025, which sees him as a solid leader” ahead of the Tour de France (July 1-23).

Departure to the Netherlands

Carchense made history by winning stage eight of the 2018 Giro d’Italia with Movistar. Never before has an Ecuadorian cyclist achieved such success in this traditional competition, one of the three most important in the world. It was a slightly longer preamble because Carapaz finished the 2019 edition of the Giro as the overall leader.

At the 2020 Vuelta a España, he was second, and at the 2021 Tour de France, he finished third on the podium. Locomotive del Carchi added to that glorious period a gold medal in road mode at the Tokyo Olympics.

Carapaz will be back on the bike from April 16 at the 57th edition of the Amstel Gold Race, a one-day race that starts and ends in Valkenburg (Limburg, Netherlands). The track is 252.2 kilometers long, with more than 3,000 meters of bumps. (D)