Former Segovian cyclist Perico Delgado, winner of the 1988 Tour de France, This Thursday, he called for “calm” and for time to pass to analyze the controversy generated by his critical comments on TVE about the pro-Palestinian protests which conditioned the last edition of the Vuelta Ciclista a España, against the presence of an Israeli team.
“I’m calm. What happens is we live in a society in which we look for confrontations where there are none. I feel manipulated and I think people must feel manipulated too. We need to have a little peace, calm and I think that time brings it to us fortunately,” Delgado said in statements to journalists in Segovia, where he participated in the traditional Turkish Chainless Bike Race.
Regarding the current professional cycling scene, Delgado indicated that it is a moment marked by the superiority of Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard, and regarding the route of the Vuelta a España, recently presented, he applauded the route.
Delgado predicted that the duel between Pogacar and Vingegaard would attract attention again in 2025.In this competitive cycling, there is a monster who is Pogacar, and then another, Vingegaard, who is a step below. But then the others are two or three steps behind,” he said.
According to him, both riders “will focus again on the grand tours”, while emphasizing that in the classics the scenario changes and more candidates appear, emphasizing that “current cycling is spectacular because Pogacar and Vingegaard These are riders whose teams attack from afar. “It makes the race very lively, not in the last kilometer, but in the last two hours.”
Delgado also spoke about the route of the next Vuelta a España, which he considers consistent with the identity of the event. “There is a route that I like, I think that’s the hallmark of the Vuelta a España, with nervous stages and many quality finishes”, he explained. He cited as examples the arrival in Aitana, in Alicante, and especially the last stage in Granada, which he considered “spectacular”.
He also highlighted its accumulated hardness: “For those who like numbers, in terms of meters of positive slope, that means mountain, has more than the Giro and the Tour de France next year“, we can therefore say that this is the most difficult return of the three major races which will take place in 2026.”
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