It is customary on the Tour that the stuffed lion, which is given on the podium to the leader who wears yellow after each stage, is kept in the glove compartment of the team bus, clearly visible through the windshield. In the parking lot at the exit from Mont de Marsan, in the UAE vehicle they have four, which correspond to the four days that General Adam Yates led. There was one on the jumbo bus, the one Vingegaard was given at Cauterets. The Bora also has one – the yellow one lasted Hindley one day. Instead, the windshield of the Ineos bus is empty, with no stuffed animals to show off. In the British team, the feline travels inside: Carlos Rodríguez, the lion of Almuñécar.
In a lineup that includes a Tour winner (Bernal), an Olympic gold medalist (Pidcock), a world champion (Kwiatkowski), a winner of an Itzulia and a Dauphiné (Daniel Felipe Martínez) and the last Spanish stage winner In the French round (Fraile), the Ineos leader is a 22-year-old boy, who is making his Tour debut this year.
The man from Granada is rubbing shoulders with the best, he is the first Spaniard in the general classification and is already fifth after performing at a high level in the two stages of the Pyrenees. In Laruns, after Marie Blanque, he crossed the finish line in Pogacar’s group while in Cauterets, after Tourmalet, he arrived pulling Simon Yates and Hindley, cyclists who each already have a great lap to their credit.
The great baptism in the French round of Carlos Rodríguez, who was already seventh in the last Vuelta, where he resisted in the last stages after a hard fall with multiple abrasions on his body, was in Cauterets-Cambasque, precisely where Miguel Indurain won in 1989 his first stage on the Tour, in his fifth participation, at the age of 24. A special parallel because Rodríguez represents hope in difficult times and can end the seven-year drought without a Spaniard on the podium in Paris. The last to climb was Alejandro Valverde, third in 2015. At the moment, he is less than a minute and a half (1m26s) from the podium, from the third position occupied by Hindley.
Ineos considers him its great asset as could be seen on Thursday, when he put Egan Bernal to shoot and sacrificed Castroviejo, a luxury gregarious man, present in seven great Sky-Ineos successes, for Rodríguez. “The team has been ten, supporting me. I am quite happy with how things are going but the legs have to continue responding since there is a long way to go”, reflects the man from Almuñécar, who, sensible and mature, does not want to believe himself the leader of the ranks. “I believe in the work I have done and in continuing to fight. I feel good, ”he says.
Trained at Kometa, Alberto Contador’s club, Ineos signed him at the age of 18 and signed him a contract for four seasons – Movistar wants him. He has been growing little by little, always with good lyrics until he was confirmed last year by winning the Spanish road championship and a stage in Itzulia.
With a well-furnished head, with studies in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, he is a solid cyclist, a diesel with a good plant (1.82 m). Rodríguez is one of those who improves as the days go by. He demonstrated it in 2021 in the Tour of the Future, which he played with the Spanish team. With the abandonment of Ayuso, the Andalusian took the responsibilities and finished second, just 7s behind Tobias Johannessen, after making a great attack in Iseran and Petit Saint-Bernard, and putting him on the ropes in the last stage. He now fights with the greats despite being the youngest, by far, in the top-10, and wants to reign in the jungle of the podium.
