In the streets of old Zurich where Lenin rode his bike before taking the Winter Palace, young Spanish cyclists are confirming their revolution. After the struggle of Iván Romeo, gold in the U-23 time trial, and Paula Ostiz, silver in the junior category, the torch, the light, takes shape in the long, endless legs, the silky pedal stroke born in the velodrome, of Héctor Álvarez, a 17-year-old junk from Alfàs del Pi, so close to Benidorm. It is the Junior World Championships. It is 127 kilometres and a downpour. For 107 kilometres, Héctor Álvarez conducts the orchestra, the rhythm of the race, sometimes violent, other times calm, always intense. He accelerates on the repeated climbs along the street of Zurichberg, up to the promontory, 17% for 50 metres; he lets himself fall on the descents, he maintains the tension on the long, flat slopes. The peloton breaks up, fragments, disappears. He, always in the lead, is 20 kilometres from the finish, the last lap. He and Lorenzo Finn from Genoa, also 17 years old, also born in December 2006. The most dangerous rivals have vanished. The big favourite, the Frenchman Paul Seixas, has raised the white flag at 40 kilometres; the number one, the Dane Albert Philipsen, has fallen on a descent just after having attacked. Alvarez passes the Dane, lying on the pavement, reaches the Italian. The two talk. The Italian tells him to go as a relay. Alvarez tells him no, he can’t. The Italian leaves. A few metres further on, suddenly, the light goes out for Alvarez, a hasty night. There are 20 kilometres left. A cruel eternity for the man from Alicante, empty. The Italian, a bright and light spark, flies towards gold and the rainbow. Álvarez, glued to the asphalt, is overtaken one after another by rivals whom he had left pinned down a few minutes earlier on the cobblestones of the streets of Zurich. He finishes sixth. He collapses on the asphalt and trembles. And still trembling, his hair soaked and his teeth chattering, he passes through the mixed zone. His gaze is lowered. “I gave it my all,” says the best junior in the world, triumphant on the Belgian cobblestones and in the Italian Eroica, unnecessarily. “I am empty. I couldn’t do any more.”
Like his generation partner Adrià Pericas (14th), Romeo, Ostiz, Pablo Torres and Igor Arrieta, who will compete in the under-23 race on Friday, and Eneritz Vadillo, who will compete in the women’s senior race on Saturday, all born well into the century, Héctor Álvarez represents the best of the new Spanish cycling, born with the pandemic, with individual, measured preparation, with the professionalization of habits, with an overdose of technology, algorithms and big data, and research. “From the cadets we train them by measuring watts, taking care of nutrition, which is important not so much to avoid gaining weight as to always have energy,” says Jaume Barberà, Héctor Álvarez’s coach. “They are also the result of the new wave of physical trainers, who have put their batteries into action and intervene more in their training. And, above all, Spain has opened up to the world. The juniors barely competed outside before. Juan Ayuso barely went out before going to an Italian team. And now, with the national team, they have competed in the best competitions in the world all year round. And they have lost their complexes.”
Son of Luis Gerardo Álvarez, the king of the Volta a la Marina and director of the Alfàs cycling club, a year ago, at the age of 16, Héctor Álvarez was proclaimed youth European champion of Omnium at the Anadia velodrome (Portugal). His physique (1.87 metres, 73 kilos) is that of a classics rider, rare in the Spanish cycling school. He is big, powerful, and can ride in the middle mountains. In 2025 he will ride in the second team of Lidl-Trek, where he will continue to grow guided by Markel Irizar. Where he will continue to discover, as he cruelly learned in Zurich, that cycling is something more than mathematics and science, it is also something intangible. The old cyclists warned before the race: be careful with the rain, you go out at full speed and when it rains you don’t get as thirsty as if it weren’t raining, and you tend to eat less. Eat, Count, they shout. Sometimes, too late, as Hector Alvarez, the future, learned against his will the day he suffered his first big crash, a phenomenon that was considered extinct.
The youngsters are growing up and in the national team hotel, like falcons on the lookout, the great managers offer them a spectacular future on a silver platter. The best teams in the world are fighting for them. Pericas, like Pablo Torres and Igor Arrieta, are already at UAE; Paula Ostiz and Romeo at Movistar; Héctor Álvarez, at Lidl. And those who have grown up in the Vuelta will reach the WorldTour in 2025, like the phenomenal Pablo Castrillo, who comes to Movistar from Kern, who will fill his gap with another great Italian junior, Simone Galbusera.
