Second in the 2021 Tour del Porvenir, seventh in his first Vuelta a España in 2022, fifth in the last Tour de France and second at the beginning of April in Itzulia. Brilliant results for an incredibly promising cyclist. Places of honor for an extremely regular runner, ideal for the grand tours, from which he rarely fails. But Carlos Rodríguez is something more. He also knows how to win. He proved it by winning the Tour de Romandie, his first one-week round.
The Granada native, born in 2001, is signing up for a World Tour race, with time trials and mountains, two high finishes, which will help him add all the stripes on his team, if he didn’t already have them. With regularity and ambition, he has made good on Ineos’ bet on him. First moving to professionals in 2020 from the Kometa team of the Contador Foundation. And this winter scratching their pockets to keep it.
And yes, he took advantage of the fact that the big stars were not there – Pogacar is preparing the Giro and Vingegaard, Roglic and Evenepoel are recovering from the fall of Olaeta – but he also had to defeat the entire upper class of current cycling, cyclists like Simon Yates , Carapaz, Tao Geoghegan Hart or Hindley, who already have a great one. And others who get on the podiums a lot like the other Yates, Ayuso, Vlasov, Gaudu or Enric Mas.
For Spanish cycling, the withdrawals of its golden generation were dramatic. Joaquim Rodríguez left in 2016, Alberto Contador and Samuel Sánchez left the following year and Alejandro Valverde held on until 2022. After them, a journey through the desert was normal, with a drought of results. But then the young people, the very young, came to the rescue.
Carlos Rodríguez’s victory is the confirmation that the relay has been completed. His success joins that of Juan Ayuso (one year younger) in Itzulia and also that of Juanpe López (26) in the Tour of the Alps, all this April. For the first time since 2014, Spain has won two of the seven most important races in a week with two different cyclists.
Carlos Rodríguez was barely seen wearing the yellow jersey during the last stage. Raced under a downpour, the leader never took off the Ineos team’s black raincoat, which protected him very well during the 150 km.
Although wearing the leader’s garment covered caused some confusion when after a fall in the peloton he was not detected in the first cut. Ineos pulled from behind but not because the Andalusian was losing time, but because they wanted to protect him more. Carlos Rodríguez was always well placed, accompanied by Sheffield and Egan Bernal, a Tour champion turned into a luxury assistant for the one from Almuñécar.
Only two Spanish cyclists had entered their names in Romandía’s honors list in the 76 previous editions. They were the Basques Abraham Olano in 1996 and Paco Galdós in 1975. Both made the podium in the Giro that same year. But Rodríguez will not go to Italy. Or rather, he will go, yes, but to Florence on June 29 for the start of the Tour de France.
