‘Impossible. Barbaric’

What the pros have said about the infamous Angliru

To add drama to their race in the late 1990s, the organisers of the Vuelta a Espana went in search of everharder mountaintop finishes. They found their jewel in the Angliru and introduced it in 1999. It caused immediate controversy.

Leonardo Piepoli, an Italian climber, called it ‘impossible’ after a recce prior to that initial inclusion in the Vuelta. Kelme team manager Vincente Belda said, ‘What do they want? Blood? They ask us to stay clean and avoid doping and then they make the riders tackle this kind of barbarity.’

Some thought the Angliru wasn’t actually good for racing. Former French pro Patrice Halgand said, ‘I find it ridiculous. Differences in the riders would show just as well on a col that’s less steep and on a wider road. It would also be better for the spectacle, because on the Angliru the guys go too pitifully for the climb to have any sporting interest.’

Alejandro Valverde agreed that strategy goes out of the window as you hit the Asturian slopes: ‘Angliru is a demanding climb where the only strategy is finding your own pace and forgetting about your rivals.’

The fans loved the drama it provided, however, including a rain-lashed ascent in 2002 that saw team cars unable to retain traction on the paint the fans had daubed on the road, with riders caught behind the cars and others riding with flat tyres because their team cars couldn’t reach them.

In fact, so popular was the spectacle of the Angliru that the organisers of the Giro d’italia, in an attempt to reclaim the accolade of having the toughest Grand Tour climb, chose to include Monte Zoncolan (see box on p98) in 2003.