He’s been heralded as the next Alberto Contador but Enric Mas isn't in the business of standing in anyone’s shadow. The 23-year-old Spaniard is dreaming big and as he tells Cyclingnews, he’s nothing but his own man.
Hailing from Mallorca, Mas graduated through one of the island’s top sporting academies and regularly made trips to the mainland as a junior rider. On weekends his parents would deliver him to Palma’s main airport with just a bike, a bag of kit and an encouraging pat on the back to see him off. Mas would return that same night, his kit bag and bike slightly grubbier than when he left but more often than not, a shiny trophy resting atop is bike bag for when he parents arrived to take him home.
“My first race was a time trial and I won. It was like a junior Vuelta that was spread over three weekends in Valencia and I finished second overall,” Mas tells Cyclingnews.
ADVERTISEMENT
“When I was a junior, maybe from 13, I’d fly over to the mainland almost every weekend. I’d go all over the country on my own. My parents would drive me to the airport and then when I’d arrive I’d have to get to races on my own with my bike. Sometimes I’d come back with a trophy, sometimes I wouldn’t but it was all good experience.”
Such a level of independence certainly helped shape Mas into being the self-governing thinker that he is today. Assured, yet quietly humble, he admits that he expected more from his debut season at WorldTour, despite a string of promising results and a Vuelta a Espana debut that saw him put in a sterling ride on the road to the Angliru. Unlike the majority of promising Spanish riders, Mas also chose to ride for QuickStep’s feeder team in 2016 instead of opting for a perhaps more comfortable ride on a domestic team. As one of just two Spanish riders on the Czech-registered Klein Constantia team, Mas was able to develop his language skills, learn from other cultures, and immerse himself in a multi-national environment. It was a move that helped ease the transition into Quick-Step's bilingual set-up.
“They gave me the opportunity to pass through into the Continental programme,” he says of his development.
2018
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest News http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/mas-i-want-to-be-the-first-enric-mas-not-the-next-alberto-contador
No comments:
Post a Comment