First Ecuadoran WorldTour rider Carapaz set to join Movistar
The Movistar Team will be the home of the WorldTour's first Ecuadoran rider in 2017 when Richard Carapaz joins as a neo-pro. The 23-year-old already raced with the Spanish team this summer as a trainee, and is looking forward to fulfilling his two-year contract.
"I had to put a lot of consistency and effort into the task," Carapaz said in a team interview. "Going out and making it into elite WorldTour is extremely difficult in a country like Ecuador. I love my country, yet it's sadly a football-focused country - you'll only get the help you need if you choose that sport. Happily, I had the chance to travel, racing in Colombia, and other places in the Americas like Argentina and Mexico, where I saw I had a talent for cycling and could make the most of it. I never gave up, and that was the key to getting here."
ADVERTISEMENT
When Carapaz won the Vuelta a la Juventud in Colombia in 2015, he caught the eye of Movistar manager Eusebio Unzue, who wanted him to come to Europe and test himself in the Spanish peloton. He joined the Lizarte team directed by Manolo Azcona and former pro Juan José Oroz in April, and began netting some solid results. A second place in the Memorial Valenciaga in his first outing with the team, the Urraki hillclimb, the Lazkao Proba in the Basque Country, and the overall Vuelta a Navarra.
From there, he returned home before his abilities were put to the test with the WorldTour squad in his trainee period, and he said the first races were very difficult.
After that opening period with Lizarte, I hadn't any chance to keep that form in my country. There are no cycling races there, and even though I kept training conscienciously, it was difficult to make the step right against WorldTour teams on the way back because I had no racing form. Should I have wanted to race, I'd have had to do it in Colombia, which wasn't possible anymore. I switched my sights towards staying fresh and being willing to make those efforts in the late season - I was really aware that what I delivered during those months would be crucial so I could stay with the team."
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest News http://ift.tt/2fhhPrV
No comments:
Post a Comment