The force of identity, the primitive force, gave birth to the Euskaltel-Euskadi from the illusion, the orange tide of the Pyrenees, in the Tour, in the Alps, in the Dauphiné, Haimar Zubeldia, Iban Mayo, Roberto Laiseka, Samuel Sánchez , or Mikel Landa. Aitor Galdós, new president of the Euskadi Foundation and manager of the team, talks about those times, 20 years now, and he does it to escape melancholy. These times do not allow for nostalgia, but for what philosophers call a creative recapitulation. “That left us a legacy, it has left us a beautiful story. This team is known for those years that we lived there, it is something that has positioned us in a very important way within the world of cycling,” says Galdós, 44 years old, business administration student, Euskaltel cyclist four years after starting in Japan. and grow up in Italy. “But times change. Assuming WorldTour budgets is unfeasible for a team whose companies are limited to the Basque Country and have to compete with state projects, with very strong multinationals.”
Galdós looks around the cafeteria of the Altea hotel where the team gathered a few weeks ago, full of boys in orange, and not only, also girls dressed in purple, and Joane Somarriba, the greatest in the history of the Spanish women’s cycling, with them, and the hope that, finally, heirs of their mettle will arrive. And they, who form the Laboral Kutxa team, also included in the Euskadi Foundation, also under its aegis, are the reason for the pride and strength of Galdós, who, along with other of his founding fathers in 2018 —Pedro Celaya, Haimar Zubeldia, Ander Egaña…— have created a model of operation and organization that should serve as a reference for the new era of the men’s team. One goal: for boys to function as well as girls. “Euskaltel was a bit in decline, it was not exciting either inside or outside and it had to be changed. When the inertia is negative and something does not excite, changes must be made. Running the men’s Tour again is a dream, but we are in the process of creating a model that inspires. And let’s see, with that breeding ground, how far we can go. If the limitations are simply economic, it would be a good thing,” says Galdós. “With the riders we are on the verge of being a WorldTour team in a few years, but having our riders leave for WorldTour teams will be part of a job well done. And it will be part of the growth process of our team. And I wish our men’s team were a reference for the WorldTour to train their riders.”
With less than two million euros a year you can manage a good women’s team in the highest category and run the big races, Tour, Vuelta, Giro, classics, with guarantees. In the men’s WorldTour, in which the average budget of the teams reaches 25 million, the largest, with budgets around 40 million, take the best riders, and leave the rest the crumbs. If the women’s Movistar, the best Spanish team, although none of the best Spanish teams race with the M, is a kind of little sister of the men’s, although the great victories for the Movistar family in the last two years have been those of the women, the Dutch Annemiek van Vleuten above all, Laboral Kutxa is now the older sister of Euskaltel.
Women rule. Women have occupied the center of the Foundation’s project, which was born in the 90s with only men in mind. The symbols do not deceive. His purple jersey is also the jersey of the men’s under 23 team. And in the center of them, a leader, Ane Santesteban, along with Mavi García, the best Spanish cyclist of the moment. She is from Errenteria (Gipuzkoa). She is 33 years old and has returned to a home team after 11 years fighting abroad, Italy, Germany, Australia. Her return is the best proof that Laboral Kutxa is something important. “The Foundation, yes, will be known by Laboral. I have experienced it with great pride and in fact it was one of the reasons that prompted me to come here. I was very good at Jayco, but talking with Aitor Galdós, talking with Ander Toña, I really saw the commitment they were making, they believed in women’s sport, in women’s cycling and that is what pushed me a little to make the decision. A few years ago it seemed unthinkable to be able to have a structure like this in Euskadi,” he says. “It seems like I’ve been waiting and the opportunity has finally arrived. I have been asking to have a team for so many years, now we have achieved it and now I have to go there at my best and do what we have to do.”
Santesteban talks about the land, the roots, the strength of tradition, but he talks about something else, he talks about male-female equality, about the need for women’s cycling to be fully professional. “The project is more than just romanticism, it is generating a pool of good women’s cycling,” says the Gipuzkoa cyclist, eighth in the last Tour de France, and points out, sitting at another table, her partner Eneritz Vadillo, a 19-year-old Biscayan from Gorla. years, and student of Industrial Engineering, or the Navarrese Idoia Eraso. “They are the future. I know there is a future, it gives me a lot of peace of mind and I am also excited to be able to help them. For many years we have not had equality and we have had to combine our sports career with studies or working. Now this is improving and thanks to teams like Movistar or Laboral Kutxa, we have the opportunity to be real professionals. They have already set minimum conditions for cycling. “It’s going in the right direction and I know things are going to work out.”
If in the women’s WorldTour the minimum salary amounts to 35,000 euros per year (14 payments of 2,500), for the professional category of Laboral Kutxa the Spanish federation set the minimum interprofessional salary as a lower limit, 14 payments of 1,134 euros (15,876 euros per year). As scarce as it seems, the amount is excessive for most teams, and some, like Durango, have had to close. “I have experienced it with great sadness because I also raced for Bizkaia Durango and if I am sitting here today it is because they gave me the opportunity to be a cyclist or to be able to go to professional races at least. I experienced it with great sadness, but at the same time I also understand that you have to have minimum conditions because not everything can be worth it,” says Santesteban. “If we want to be professionals, we must have minimum conditions. We need equality. Equality in society, equality in sport…”
Opportunities for women’s sports
Santesteban, who has grown up on foreign teams, is amused to hear so many times that the Dutch women, who win everything, are a superior race, at least. She immediately responds that the difference is cultural and social, a question of equality and the importance that women’s sports have in other countries. And she was like a person who knows the world.
“I have met a lot of people from abroad, I have seen different cultures and I think that is also super enriching at the same time. Well, it also often made me angry to have the results and so on and not have that equality. Just because you are a woman you don’t have the same opportunities. We have lived it for many years. A terrible inequality that is difficult to understand. I remember when I made the top 10 in the Giro (2020) I was earning 7,000 euros a year, you know? And that makes me angry. That is to say, just because I am a woman it is difficult for me to find a trainer who wants to train me; It’s hard for me to find a team… You say, it makes me want to give up everything because just because I’m a woman I don’t have the opportunities that men have. And that’s why, when a team like this comes out, I’m super grateful because you see that they really support women’s sports. So, maybe it’s not a WorldTour team, but for me it means more that they bet on me and support me and maybe have less structure, but at least I feel loved.”
And from the present, Santesteban easily jumps to the near past, to Joane Somarriba, his inspiration.
Joane Somarriba. ”I have known Joane for a long time, because we had Ramontxu [González Arrieta, pareja de la campeona y padre de sus hijas] of selector. We have always been in contact and I also remember that when I was younger I read her book and it inspired me a lot,’ he says. ”Everyone knows that what she has achieved has not been achieved again. She is a reference in every sense. And everything she says we listen to. Yes, yes, yes, all of them, old, young, all, and it is also sad that someone like her has not had the opportunities that the rest of us are having now.”
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