In Alejandro Valverde's garden, Juan Ayuso pokes his head

2022-03-23T18:27:55.615Z

The young Spanish cyclist, 19 years old, second in La Molina, the first hard stage of the Volta, is also second overall on the eve of the queen stage, in Boí Taüll

One month after his 42nd birthday, Alejandro Valverde, who does not look very bright, lets himself be carried away by the platoon that protects him from the freezing wind, snow in the gutters, which slows down the spirits on the heavy climb to La Molina, one of his private gardens;

Several months after turning 20, Juan Ayuso, impatient, sticks his head out again and again, accelerates, collides with the headwind, brakes, looks, waits, and like him, half the platoon calculates.

It is the first important stage of the Volta, a steep climb and 500 meters very steep that, more determined and intelligent than anyone else, the Australian Ben O'Connor has anticipated against the foot 12 kilometers from the finish, all fresh from Alp, land of the Cerdanya.

O'Connor, 26, is tough and resistant, a man with faith in the value of the individual in the face of a group that paralyzes the struggle of interests and the search for profit in the efforts of others, and neither Guillaume Martin, the philosopher who writes and pedals, and so well reflects and theorizes about the complex relationships between the different social classes of the peloton, he can break the inertia with his solitary effort, a wet attack.

O'Connor, who followed the old law that to win a stage you have to attack the last one before anyone else, a few months ago, in July,

big loop.

In La Molina he also wins, with a 6s advantage, and he celebrates it as much as in France, because, in addition, he takes the lead.

And, behind him, second in the stage, second overall, at 10s, Juan Ayuso, the kid who appears, the expected one.

Third, as always in La Molina, Nairo, eternal.

As soon as they set foot on their territory, the old ones teach the kids who arrive optimistic that they come down to earth, that the victory of the class struggle is impossible, that they submit to tradition, and in the platoon of about 40 that arrives highlighted after the unattainable O'Connor, half a dozen youngsters born with the century who a year or two ago were stuck in the Giro sub 23 or in the Tour del Porvenir march and have accelerated their maturation so much that they already do the same in races of the elders, Nairo, Carapaz, Valverde, but not Simon Yates, who vanishes, with whom they mix, whom they imitate, and habits do not change, as if the territory shaped behaviors, and the wind.

They are in Valverde territory, which has won the Volta three times (2009, 2017 and 2018) and that in La Molina, the final slope that goes so well,

It has been imposed twice.

Like Ayuso, even more determined, the Belgian Vandenabeele attacks, who was third in Ayuso's Giro baby, and his compatriot Van Wilder also shows up (there are even Belgian climbers, tiny cyclists: not all of them are already closets on pedals in the lands of Flanders), and the Norwegian Tobias Johannessen, the winner of the Tour del Porvenir ahead of Carlos Rodríguez, from Granada, who is also there.

The youngsters soak up the peloton like a big wave washes over the beach, and join up with youngsters who are a bit more veteran, but also from the century, Almeida, Higuita... “I haven't lacked anything,” says Ayuso, who defines himself as “explosive”.