EYEWITNESS: TOUR OF CATALONIA
Political tension was the backdrop for Catalunya 2018. We went to see how the race represents the region in which it takes place
Plaça de Sarrià is a nondescript but busy part of Barcelona’s urban sprawl. It’s on the west of the city: there’s a newspaper vendor, a high-end chocolatier, an 18th century church. Little about this tree-lined plaza on the fringe of Barcelona hints at its momentous past. The clue lies in a modest bronze plaque, 10 inches square, adorning a stone lattice wall a few hundred yards west on Passeig de la Reina Elisenda. This was the roll-out for 34 cyclists who launched the first Volta a Catalunya on 6 January – Kings’ Day, as the locals call it – in 1911. They left Plaça de Sarrià full of hope and handshakes and sweeping symbolism; but now the race was on.
A swift 107 years later and Alejandro Valverde, bedecked in the green and white leader’s colours of the UE Sants football club, winds his way up the city’s leafy Montjuïc hillside. On the steep and narrow Carrer dels Tres Pins, he passes a fluttering estelada – the flag supportive of Catalan independence which plants a lone star onto the distinctive red and yellow stripes of the region’s official senyera – and then a man whirling the stouter bands of the Spanish rojigualda high above his head. At the very top of the slope hang the stark red, white and green diagonals of the Basques’ beloved ikurriña.
Welcome to Barcelona in 2018: a city of flags, of rampant identity politics, of two riots and mass protests on the damp March weekend of the Volta alone. A city of angst, of weariness at the politicisation of everyday life; a city that wraps itself in sport to recall its essence whenever it forgets.
They say sport and politics don’t mix, but never convincingly. This is the city, after all, that lost the 1936 Olympics to Berlin on the grounds of political stability. Just staging this 98th edition of the Volta, without a regional government in place to support it, has proved challenging. But the spectacular airing of Catalonia’s timeworn political linen – which has dented the region’s economy and wrenched apart families, neighbours and friends – has been framed, for many international observers, by the heartfelt musings of sports stars like Gerard Piqué, Pep Guardiola and Rafael Nadal.
“What has become clear today is that common sense is the least common of the senses.” That was David de la Cruz, the Catalan rider then at Quick-Step and now with Sky, in a trilingual tweet posted on 1 October last year, the day of the region’s chaotic ‘referendum’, for which he deserves great credit. Certainly, the violence and violent intransigence beamed around the world that day did few favours for either the Spanish state, which sent in riot police to disrupt the poll, or its militant separatist adversaries.
“The Volta has never entered into political conflicts,” says race director, Rubèn Peris, “nor will it at this time.” Of course, as an official line, that makes sense. But Catalan politics are nuanced; any desire for independence shouldn’t be confused with a broadly held willingness to project a fierce regional identity as distinct from Spain. And in this sense, at least, the race matters.
Like its Basque equivalent at the other end of the Pyrenees, the Volta was created as a status symbol of regional prowess; two regions industrialising ahead of their Spanish neighbours – and they were keen to announce the fact. The imagery is stark: a newly minted bourgeoisie pedalling softly around its cities, organising international competitions to boot, while Spain laboured in the fields.
“The Volta is the heritage of all Catalonia,” explains Rafael Vallbona, a writer and professor at Ramon Llull University, who authored a history of the race upon its centenary. This, he says, is partly because it’s the oldest stage race in the world after the Tour and the Giro, but also because it reflects the values of “modernity, cosmopolitanism and fraternity” which historically shape the region.
While it’s well known today that every swipe into the top corner by Lionel Messi is a notional blow to the heart of Madrid and the centrist establishment, this foremost international projection of catalanidad once fell to the Volta. Through the 1920s right up to the advent of the Spanish civil war, cycling was the star draw in Catalonia; more than 200,000 people watched the race pass through the streets of Barcelona each year, while monochrome photos show seven-time champion Mariano Cañardo posing jovially on the pitch before football matches with the Messi of his day, Pepe Samitier. Such was the popularity of cycling that FC Barça, built from the same districts of Sants and Les Corts as the city’s early bike culture, even ran its own team, propelling Cañardo to victory in 1929.
Though too humble to be a political icon, the champion respected the role he had as a public figurehead as Spain descended into war. “In the 1938 Tour,” explains Vallbona, “the race passed through Bourg Madame, a border town by the Catalan municipality of Puigcerdà. Cañardo asked permission from race control to go ahead of the peloton. He went to the border and greeted everyone who was there. He was photographed with the Carabineros – the Republican forces guarding the border – and with members of the Army of the Republic.”
Upon the Republicans’ defeat, a triumphant General Franco used the Volta for propaganda, insisting the race went ahead in atrocious conditions with roads destroyed and numerous former riders killed or imprisoned. Still Cañardo won.
“The Volta is a symbol of a country stronger than all the repression, and this is what the Catalan people have always understood,” says Vallbona. “Over the years, people have understood that the survival of the race and its projection to the zenith of professional cycling is another sign of the strength of a country that is always reborn from its ashes.”
A NEW LANDSCAPE
Times change, and Mundo-Deportivo, the newspaper whose editor was among the race founders in 1911, now starts its coverage on page 32. Rationalisation of the cycling calendar, meanwhile, has seen the Volta brusquely shunted around, and popular regional events like the Setmana Catalana and the characterful Escalada a Montjuïc have been lost. At least the Volta retains a little of their spirit, having cannibalised the Setmana’s old March scheduling while its finale, a television- and spectator-friendly romp around the “magic mountain” of Montjuïc, has become its emblem. “We believe that
Through the 1920s right up to the advent of the Spanish civil war, cycling was the star draw in Catalonia
the dates we currently have, at the end of March, are ideal for us,” says Peris, “even though we must keep an eye on the weather conditions. The position in the calendar allows us to have the best cyclists in the world in our race.”
Amid the elbows-out beauty pageant of the WorldTour, the Volta sits prettily enough, and perhaps even has cause for optimism. Tour godfather ASO is on board to expand sponsorship and presence, grand plans are afoot for the 100th edition in 2020, and there is talk of the new women’s race – whose mischievous name “reVolta”, chosen by public vote, apparently reflects “a revolt in women’s sport” rather than a nod towards political upheaval – expanding to multiple days.
Up on Montjuïc, where the Olympic flame once burned bright, the torch of Catalan cycling is changing hands. Passing it on is the Barcelona-born puncheur Joaquim Rodríguez, who won the Setmana, the Escalada and the Volta in a sparkling 16-year career. “Having won all the races in Catalonia makes it clear that I was very motivated to race at home,” he tells Procycling.
For a young Rodríguez – now working as an ambassador for Bahrain-Merida – attending the Volta was a ritual. “Every year I went to see it. I don’t think I missed a single edition as a child. Perhaps the biggest memory was the year they told me I was going to become a professional and we went to see the ONCE team of Manolo Saiz [who had just signed him], to see them in that Volta. It was spectacular.”
From the roadside, Rodríguez saw Volta history made. But he is too young to have seen the fellow two-time champion now remembered as the greatest Catalan cyclist of all. Out of his father’s bike store in Barcelona, the squat everyman Miguel Poblet – likened to the fictional squire Sancho Panza in Don Quixote – claimed 26 grand tour stages, and the city’s Olympic velodrome now bears his name. Memories have dimmed, but still the Volta retains an aura of sorts.
“The race is one of the most underrated of the season as far as difficulty goes, in my opinion,” says the UAE Emirates rider Dan Martin, a collateral victim of Egan Bernal’s final-day crash this year. The Irishman, whose five top-four Volta finishes include victory in 2013, cites distance, altitude gain and the constant risk of high winds and echelon racing as key challenges – alongside a pool of climbing talent “often one of the strongest of any race all season”.
Martin used to live in the northern Catalan cycling hotbed of Girona – the home, coincidentally, of would-be Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and a pro-independence stronghold. There too is the ex-Orica racer Christian Meier, a Canadian former winner of the Volta’s sprints jersey, whose new local cycling business adds to the two coffee outlets he runs with his wife.
“I don’t think the recent political events are really causing much unrest amongst the pros,” Meier reflects. “Independent or not, it’s still a great place to live and train, so if you are only spending a part of the year there, and not fiscally attached, it’s not really a big deal. From a business perspective it could be potentially a bit of a different story, but from our interest and bookings for this coming year it seems that the consensus from cyclo-tourists is that Girona is still in their plans.”
Martin has seen one major change in his decade here. “Catalonia is definitely rediscovering its passion for road cycling,” he says. “When I first moved to the region in 2008 the locals mostly stuck to the offroad trails, [but] now the number of cyclists on roads is incredible.”
“It’s not like football as everyone knows,” says De la Cruz. “But I think the cycling community in Catalonia has been really big, thanks to riders like Poblet, or Melcior Mauri [the 1991 Vuelta champion], or in the last few years with Purito [Rodríguez].”
Catalan Miguel Poblet claimed 26 grand tour stages, and the city's Olympic velodrome now bears his name