Mikel Landa has had the team in Bahrain that he would have needed since his beginnings
With Gran Piemonte tomorrow and Giro Lombardia, on Saturday, Mikel Landa will end four years of stay in Bahrain.
It has been by far the team in which the Alava team has performed the most and I think the best.
Since leaving Euskaltel ten years ago, with that traumatic disappearance, Landa has spent two years in Astana, Sky and Astana before arriving in Bahrain, just before the pandemic.
From this time we draw several conclusions, on the one hand that Landa arrived at the team from the Arab capital as one of the strongest and most solid candidates for the grand toursreaching almost the podium in the Giro and Tour, with Sky and Movistar, and showing that his margin of progression still had some way to go.
Hoy Landa no longer makes the cut for big favorites after a three-week return with the plethora of specialists who have landed and taken command of the best races.
The Landa that leaves Bahrain does so, in principle, with a gregarious role, although seeing the “merdé” that is created with the merger-acquisition or whatever, who knows where it ends next year.
At the moment he has a couple of years signed with the Lefevere structure and the UCI has said that this is respected.
In any case, and while we see what happens, we look back at these four years, an Olympic cycle to extract a first and clear reading: Landa has given Bahrain good podiums and valuable places of honor, but only one victory that was not even It required raising your arms at the finish line, the general victory of last year’s Vuelta a Burgos.
Although we have never seen Landa in the fight for a great return in this time, or in a position to win one, it is true that numerically speaking his performance offers good results, despite the disappointments that we have surely had this year. time.
He has made the podium in two Tirrenos at an insane level With people like Pogacar, Vingegaard or Van Aert in competition, he also stepped on the podium of a monument, Lombardy last year, and that of the Giro d’Italia, his great obsession, when he was third after Hindley and Carapaz.
In this magazine of prestigious podiums, remember the one in Itzulia this same year, where he tried Vingegaard’s medicine.
All the podiums you mentioned have two things in common: they are very prestigious and speak of the level of the cyclist, but at the same time were achieved without the option to dispute the victory because the first ones were much superior.
Landa has also left the team with good positions in the other two major races: fourth in the Tour four years ago, what a shame they didn’t eliminate Richie Porte in that sterrato, and fifth in the Vuelta that just ended.
For Landa and his people, apostles of Landism, we will always know what would have happened if they had not fallen at that arrival in Cattolica in the Giro that Bernal won.
That year the Alavés seemed very strong and, as we saw, very well surrounded by a team that would end up failing that season.
Be that as it may, and after reviewing everything that has been and could have been, I believe that the cyclist’s relationship with the team has been fruitful in the field that Landa is best suited to, the positions, outside of that, victory has been unrelated to his baggage.
Imagen: UNIPUBLIC / SPRINT CYCLING AGENCY
2023-10-05 10:14:17
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