The Movistar Team’s two main references for the upcoming 2021 Tour de France, Miguel Ángel López and Enric Mas, completed their preparations with an impressive display at the Mont Ventoux Dénivelé Challenges (UCI 1.1), held on Thursday over a really tough course -153km with 4,400m of elevation gain-, featuring two final climbs of the ‘Giant of Provence’, where the Telefónica-backed squad was the absolute protagonist.
The great work from Mathias Norsgaard, Lluís Mas and Juri Hollmann to control the peloton into the early climbs allowed the Blue duo reaching the final 21km uphill fresh and calm, with a seven-man breakaway -Quentin Pacher (BBK) as last ‘survivor’- kept on a short leash. The Frenchman was indeed caught by López himself, who was protected by Verona and Pedrero early into the climb and then tried a long-range move, 12km away from the summit, to start creating impressive gaps, which reached two and a half minutes at the top.
Behind, Mas initially marked every move in pursuit of his team-mate and then sought to pick up the pace and try to make it into a podium he ultimately got in 3rd spot, behind Óscar Rodríguez (APT) and López. Today’s victory by ‘Superman’ increases the Movistar Team’s 2021 win tally to 19, nine obtained by the men’s squad.
“I’m so happy about the win! We obviously were tipped by many as favourites to do well and go for the win, both myself and Enric, but our team-mates were fantastic and made things quite easier. It was a magnificent job by them – and we had to try and pay them back for those efforts, so why not go for a nice victory! An easy one? It’s never easy, not at all – it was such a long climb for me! It was difficult for everybody, especially considering that the first Ventoux climb was covered at great speed and we tackled the second one at a strong pace. That also made it easier for me to attack from afar, as the rivals were a bit more tired. As I said, I’m really happy and, overall, satisfied to complete my Tour de France preparations with this success.”
Miguel Ángel López