The covid of Enric Mas, the last blow to the worst Tour de France of Spanish cycling since 1981

But, at the arrival of Col de Granon, 11th stage, where he lost eight minutes. Daniel Cole (AP)

Enric Mas sighed the day before, on Thursday night, like one who, having finished the mountains, the Pyrenees, has had the worst of it in a Tour de France in which his performance, and that of his team, Movistar, was being disappointing given the expectations with which he arrived.

The main concerns of the Mallorcan, eleventh overall with three stages to go, including a 40-kilometre time trial, far from his goal of podium or

were, in the short term, the heat and heaviness of Friday's stage , the flat crossing of the Midi towards Cahors

in a landscape of sparse vegetation, wild field flowers and wild medicinal herbs, a new beating, and, in the medium term, psychological recovery, overcoming the mental and physiological blockade to which the stress generated by fear in the declines.

His participation in the Vuelta, as team leader alongside Alejandro Valverde, depends on it.

Both problems were momentarily parked at dawn on Friday when a positive antigen test forced him to withdraw from a Tour de France for the first time.

It is the last blow to the almost transparent Tour of his team, which is fighting not to be relegated to the second division, which would leave it out of the automatic selection for the big races, and which will not add the 150 points that the Mallorcan's 11th place would provide.

The crashes coming down from Mas in Tirreno, Itzulia and Dauphiné, races in which he was assured of a podium or a place in the top six, already meant a loss of 600 points in the spring.

"Despite the infection, Mas is in good health," his team has reported.

The Majorcan already announced at the start of the Tour in Copenhagen that if he tested positive, even if he felt fine and was asymptomatic, he would retire.

"Given the effects of covid on the heart, I think it's dangerous to go to great lengths while infected," he said.

"So yes, I would drop out if I tested positive."

The Tour of renewal in Movistar's technical management, with Patxi Vila taking over as director for the last decade, José Luis Arrieta, fired, will be for the best Spanish team, and until recently one of the best in the world, one of bitter memories, and a reflection of both his meager season and the crisis in Spanish cycling.

A Tour with such a poor harvest for both –zero stages;

best Spaniard, the veteran, 38 years old, Luis León Sánchez, 15th;

best Movistar, Matteo Jorgenson, 21st – did not happen, except for the 1998 Tour Festina, which everyone abandoned, since 1981, in which the first classified Spaniard, Alberto Fernández, was 21st.

Two years later, the appearance in the Reynolds Tour of Ángel Arroyo and Perico Delgado, had the value of a revolution.

The Reynolds, precisely the predecessor by direct line of Movistar, accustomed the fans to some names, also Indurain, of course, and to such spectacular triumphs that until the last good years of the Eusebio Unzue team, victory in the team classification, podiums of Nairo and Valverde, Landa's fight, various stage victories in the times when Arrieta led the team, were seen as minor by the most demanding.

The team was then fighting for the final victory and had a weight in the development of the race that it has lost.

Four decades later, and at a time when cycling speaks English, budgets have multiplied and the riders' wage bill is no longer practically the only expense – technology, material, hiring engineers, nutritionists, analysts of big data,

coaches, expenses in concentrations in height more and more repeated: the Jumbo or Ineos model–, Movistar has remained at a lower level.

The Spanish cycling.

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