- HOT TOPICS:
- Cav wins stage 2 •
- Cancellara wins opener •
- Sastre can't start in yellow •
- Boonen gets green light
Vuelta Chihuahua: Alcalá joins the comeback brigade
- Article Extras
- Photos
- Race Index
It’s official; “comeback” is the word of the year in professional cycling.
Following in the wake of Mario Cipollini (un-retired and then retired again), Lance Armstrong (un-retired and already making waves) and Alexander Vinokourov (trying to beat a doping rap and un-retire), Mexican great Raúl Alcalá is now getting back in the game.
Alcalá, who turned 44 last March, will toe his first startline in nearly a decade when he lines up as a member of Team Rica Burguer for the seven-stage Vuelta Chihuahua, which starts Monday with a 147.8-kilometer mostly flat run from Chihuahua to Camargo.
On Sunday, Alcalá was among the cast of riders introduced at a pomp-and-circumstance filled team presentation held at a modern theater in downtown Chihuahua, the sprawling capital city that bears the same name as the largest of Mexico’s 31 states.
During the 90-minute affair, Alcalá received a rousing ovation from the packed-house crowd, and was then presented with a commemorative plaque by Chihuahua governor José Reyes Baeza moments after a video chronicling Alcalá’s career played on a pair of large, on-stage TV screens.
“Money is not a problem. My life is still very good here in México,” Alcalá explained to VeloNews when asked why he too was attempting coming back. “But my life is cycling, and I got a little bug in my head. That is when I know I want to come back.”
For those who don’t remember, Alcalá was the first Mexican cyclist to compete in the Tour de France, starting the 1986 race as a member of the U.S.-based 7-Eleven team. A year later he scored the French grand tour’s best young rider’s jersey, finishing ninth overall behind maillot jaune Stephen Roche.
Alcalá went on to win one Tour stage in both 1989 and 1990, placing eighth overall both times. He also scored victories in the 1992 Classica San Sebastian and 1993 Tour DuPont. But his racing career essentially ended in 1994, and outside of a mostly-ceremonial appearance at the 1999 Tour of Mexico, he spent most of the last decade enjoying retirement in his home city of Monterrey, Mexico.
But according to new Rica Burguer teammate Gilberto Porras, the former pro peloton star has been training hard during the last year and wants to contest next year’s Tour de France.
“It was definitely a surprise to find out that he was going to be part of the team,” admitted Porras, who said he got the news only a few days ago. “Another teammate had to be dropped to make room. Now we are all looking forward to see how good a shape he is in. This morning during training was the first ride we had with him. We had a few laughs.
“He’s pretty confident. He’s not super thin, but he says he’s been training hard and plans to race the Tour next year. At least that’s what he said.”
Indeed, the notion of a 44-year-old starting the Tour seems a bit far fetched. Alcalá himself conceded that his goal for now is to see how he fares in the week-long race around Chihuahua, won last year by then Relax-Gam rider Francisco Mancebo who is back this year with the Portuguese Fercase-Rota dos Móveis squad.
“I know I will be one of the older guys but my body feels like new now,” said Alcalá, who has just a tiny hint of grey in his otherwise thick, short-cropped black hair. “I have never stopped riding the bike. I’ve been training hard, but done no real races for 14 years. So I have the power but not the rhythm. I hope it can be like it was before, but first I need to see what happens in this race. After that we see if I am the captain or the domestique.”
Shorthanded Garmin squad
Sorting out roles will also be on the mind of the five-rider Garmin-Chipotle squad. The Boulder, Colorado-based team could have brought as many as eight riders, but with the season getting long in the tooth, sport director Johnny Weltz admitted it was tough to round up a team for the 2.2-rated UCI America Tour event that boasts an $80,000 prize purse.
“We’ve been going hard since Qatar in January so everyone is pretty tired right now,” said Weltz, whose Chihuahua contingent includes Americans Tom Peterson, Patrick McCarty, Jason Donald and Caleb Fairly, and Frenchman Christophe Laurent. “But I’m not the type to throw in the towel. We have a couple guys going well in Jason and Tom, so if things play our way you never know. If we slip into the right break something could happen. It will be very hard to defend the jersey with five, though, so we’ll probably play conservative in the beginning and see what happens.”
Among the riders Weltz and company must keep an eye on are Spaniard Ezequiel Mosquera (Xacobeo Galicia), a climbing specialist who was fourth overall at this year’s Vuelta a España.
“I think he’ll be good and probably Mancebo, too,” predicted Weltz. “It’s a little hard to know, though. It’s late in the season and there are a lot of guys here that we’ve never seen before.”
The 17-team field includes squads registered in Austria, Canada, Spain, the U.S., Japan, Portugal, Switzerland and Mexico.
After a likely bunch sprint on Monday, look for the real racing action to begin during stage 2’s ride from Parral Guachochi. The 188.7km grunt includes five categorized climbs, as it crosses the jagged Sierra Tarahumara mountain range. Stage 3 brings more of the same, as the field faces a 155.9km trip from Guachochi to Creel that includes seven rated climbs and finishes 8173 feet above sea level.
“We have some guys who live at altitude, so I think that will work in our favor,” added Weltz. “A lot of the Europeans may not be used to spending that much time at altitude.”
If the top of the GC is still close after stage 3, look for the final outcome be settled the next day during the rolling 18.9km time trial from Pitoreal to Divisadero.
A year ago, the then-Slipstream-Chipotle squad won the overall team classification led by Timmy Duggan’s fourth place overall finish and teammate Steven Cozza’s scored his first ever win as a professional on stage 6.
Canada’s Team RACE Pro is also here in north central Mexico. Their provisional line-up includes Ryan Roth, Francois Parisien, Mark Walters, Dustin Macburnies, Buck Miller, Joel Dion-Poitras and Keir Plaice.
Check back with VeloNews.com all week for reports, results and photos.
2008 Vuelta Chihuahua stages:
Stage 1 (October 6) Chihuahua-Camargo: 147.8km
Stage 2 (October 7) Parral-Guachochi: 188.7km
Stage 3 (October 8) Guachochi-Creel: 155.9km
Stage 4 (October 9) Pitoreal-Divisadero (ITT): 18.9km
Stage 5 (October 10) Creel-Cuauhtémoc: 152.8km
Stage 6 (October 11) Cuauhtémoc-Chihuahua: 126.3km
Stage 7 (October 12) Chihuahua Circuit Race: 84km
Photo Gallery
Most Recent Articles
- Boonen did not contest the stage 2 sprint. Where was he?
- Farrar impresses with his second place
- Skipping Giro was right call for Hesjedal
- Inside the Tour: Behind Cavendish's domination of the sprints
- Nuns to podium girls: A Casey B. Gibson stage 2 photo gallery
- Zack Vestal takes a close look at Cancellara's special yellow bike
- Stage 2 — a Tour de Furnace
- Armstrong: Hunting rhythm in the heat
