Puy de Dome, the volcano where Arroyo and Perico changed Spanish cycling – Spain’s News

He Puy de Dome, in the middle of the French Massif Central, is an inactive volcano. Carry 35 years asleepsince in 1988 the Tour last visited him. This afternoon it will erupt again. 13 kilometers uphill with an average slope that exceeds 7% and a terrible final four kilometers, with a percentage that does not fall below 12%. There will be explosions, especially since it will be a ghost climb. deserted. No public.

The Puy de Dome has everything to call it a magical mountain. A dead crater, already clogged by the green vegetation. A privately owned mountain. That is why the Tour cannot allow the public to copy its ditches. Nor will accredited journalists be able to access on their own and interviews at the finish line will be prohibited. All the teams have been warned that their cyclists, as soon as they cross the finish line, have the obligation to turn around and get off.

That’s why the Tour hardly visit. Thirteen have only been the occasions in which he has been promoted. Of these, a Hispanic cyclist has won five times and one more, the last time, one of ours has led the race: Pedro Delgado, in the Tour de France which he won. The first was Bahamontes in 1959, after Julio Jimenez in 1964 who was followed by Luis Ocaña on two occasions, 1971 and 1973 in which, like Delgado, he wore yellow. It is the volcano of the Spanish

The most iconic and remembered was the penultimate, that of the Tour of 1983. That afternoon marked a before and after in the history of Spanish cycling when Ángel Arroyo won the time trial that ended at the top of the Puy de Dome followed by Peter Delgado. A tremendous success for the then humble Reynolds team that roamed the Tour until that stage believing themselves to be second-class citizens, ignored by their rivals, and with that blow they became the center of all eyes.

The night before after dinner they went to see him and almost stayed halfway up. The access fence to the private mountain that is the Puy de Dome It was closed. And the guard did not let them pass. Right in front of the car driven by Jose Miguel Echavarri He stopped a van that was coming up loaded with loaves of bread. They took advantage of the fact that the vehicle did have permission to accelerate and pass before the barrier came down and to be able to see the colossus the one they were going to face the next day and that would change the destiny of Spanish cycling.

“I was panicking because it was very hard,” recalls Arroyo, “it brought excruciating suffering. He closed his eyes because it seemed that my legs hurt less that way ”. This Sunday the Puy de Dome awaits Spanish cycling again to make him erupt.