The first Basque cyclist to participate in the Tour, Vicente Blanco Echevarría, had his feet shattered by two accidents at work, he was known as the Cojoi traveled from Bilbao to Paris by bicycle to participate in the Grande Boucle of 1910. He arrived so tired that he could not pass the first stage, but he inaugurated the epic that the Basques have found in this race. The relationship with the Gallic cycle, and with cycling in general, would intensify in the following decades and would reach its peak in the ports of the Pyrenees and almost a century after the irruption of the Cojo. On Saturday, the Grand Départ Pays Basque, the departure of the race from Bilbao and the dispute of three stages in Basque territory, sets a new milestone.
The relationship of the Basques with cycling today is so natural that it is not easy to get it right when it comes to pointing out the elements that have substantiated it. Journalist and writer Ander Izagirre, a cyclist until the age of 20, looks, first of all, towards the origins. "Cycling arrived very early in the Basque Country because it was a prosperous area with industry, characteristics that are also met in places in Europe where there has been a great interest in cycling. Sport, in general, is an urban phenomenon that first attracts people with money and time. Then, it is generalized. It is strong in industrial areas. In Italy, he was born in Milan, not Rome. And there is the case of Catalonia, with a race like the Volta, the first for stages in Spain".
To this circumstance he adds the proximity to France, "a key aspect". Izagirre remembers that the first Basque cyclist, a few years before the Cojo, was the Basque-French Raymond Etcheverry or the early construction of a cycling velodrome next to the bay of La Concha, in Sant Sebastià. "An ecosystem is being created. There are bicycle factories, which also sponsor teams; and the Basque newspapers organize the races. The hobby spreads and, from the quantity, comes the quality. Great cyclists come out; the first great Basque mass idol is Loroño (professional from 45 to 62). He is the rival of Bahamontes and has very good performances in the Tour", he explains.
The historical thread is filled with milestones from then on. "The sixties and seventies are the years of Fagor and Kas, two teams that emerged in just 40 kilometers. In the eighties, no Basque cyclist is left without his stage in the Tour: Gorospe, Cabestany, Etxabe in Alpe d'Huez, Marino Lejarreta wins...", he explains. The years of Miguel Indurain deserve a separate chapter, which, beyond the political views on the Basque or Basconavarresa question, naturally relates to the cycling environment. "It was the total boom. In 1992 the Tour left San Sebastià and won it again. There were youth races in which we had 250 boys, all from Gipuzkoa", he says. Abraham Olano, Joseba Beloki, with three podiums in Paris, or Joane Somarriba, winner of three Tours, would take the test before the emergence of Euskaltel-Euskadi, especially since 2001.
The Basque fans mobilize en masse to support the project, which becomes a phenomenon with derivatives of interest beyond sports. Gorka Espiau is director of the Agirre Lehendakaria Center and doctor of philosophy. In the passion for this sport, he finds, "beyond objective reasons such as orography", subjective elements that have been identified in other analyzed processes. "It works because it connects with a social construction of what it means to be Basque. In the end, it is a collective construction that has not so much to do with an objective reality, but with a story we make of ourselves, which we want to project towards the future and which ends up generating reality", he indicates.
According to Espiau, part of Basque society is connected to "a history and values with which it wants to be associated". "Cycling is a sport linked to a series of values, such as effort, collective work... It is a discipline in which there is individuality, but which does not work without the team. In addition, in the case of Euskaltel, it allows a town without international recognition to have the possibility of projecting itself on the international stage with the best cyclists in the world", he explains.
Izagirre points out that the phenomenon of "national selection" operated, and he sees in the support for the Basque teams and in the idea of a block that they maintained a "singular contribution". "In Fagor, the team of cooperatives, cyclists like Ramón Mendiburu told me that the priest Arizmendiarrieta, father of Basque cooperativeism, was going to give them speeches about teamwork and commitment."
Haimar Zubeldia, professional for 20 years and with 16 Tours behind him, believes that the key has been the "empathy and closeness" that the fans have felt towards cyclists, "probably because it links them with values such as work and effort". He lived from the road during the golden years of Euskaltel and believes that the Basque fans "have a lot of respect for the driver": "Of course, there can be exceptions of fans who don't know how to behave, but in general I have heard colleagues from other countries speak with admiration of the Basque fan because he respects the cyclists, knows them and encourages them".
Izagirre agrees with this vision, although he recalls that the effervescence of the Euskaltel phenomenon also generated some episodes of "a certain fanaticism": "The Tour even avoided the Pyrenees at weekends". The writer from Donostia sees the Grand Départ as a prize for the Basque fans, although he believes that it must also be used to analyze "if the grassroots are really committed to the competition" or about the space that is given to the use of bicycles, "very far from other European countries". Espiau, for his part, reflects critically on the validity of the values that forged the Basque history of the Tour: "There is a certain crisis of values, such as effort, teamwork or solidarity, in favor of others more conservative and individualistic".
More than a century after the arrival of the Cojoa Paris, the Tour undoes that route and lands in a very different Basque Country, but which continues to search for the epic.
