“In three years we will see the fruits of the work we are doing”

Félix García Casas, former professional rider, national adaptive cycling coach and, since this season, sports director of the U19 Flex team of the Alberto Contador Foundation, as well as director of the Cycling School, makes a very positive assessment of the first part of the season that his new pupils have done.

“So far this year, what I would highlight about this team is its solidity. The boys are evolving, they run very well together and I’m surprised at how they are managing the races at this age”, he says proudly. “We started the year very well, with a good run of victories, although now we have had a month in which things are not going so well in terms of victories for one reason or another, but even so we are doing a formidable job”, explains García Casas, “as we saw in Besaya, where we won a stage and the overall team victory, or now in the Bira, in front of a luxury participation. There are riders, such as Ballesteros, who are in fantastic form and who only need to win”.

And there is no shortage of victories, such as the last one by Ángel Fuentes last weekend, when he was proclaimed Castilla y León road race champion in Burgos, after having won the same title at the time trial. Félix García Casas, however, emphasises that the most important thing “is the expectations of the team, regardless of the result. I see the evolution of the riders, how the first year riders have adapted and the solvency shown by the older riders and I am optimistic for the next races. We will fight in the last three races of the Spanish Cup, although the overall is very difficult for us, and I am looking forward to the Circuito Cántabro, the Vuelta a Valladolid and, of course, the races we are going to do in Belgium in August, including the Tour of Flanders”.

The most important thing of all is that most of the riders who have to move up a category, says Félix, “are in a position to make the jump”. And he gives an example. “He couldn’t go to the last race of the Spanish Cup and Rafa Díaz Justo, the director of the U-23 team, replaced me. He came back delighted to see how the team works in races, and that says a lot about his progression. I don’t know if they will all move up to U-23, but those who do will be very reliable, with a great deal of accumulated experience. The work we are doing will be seen when they reach the next category”.

And like his riders, Félix García Casas says he is “learning a lot” as team manager. “Putting your experience at the service of these riders is something fantastic and it is also teaching me a lot. We are now sowing what will be the great riders of the future. That’s what we have to do”, he concludes, “work calmly and seriously with the young riders so that, if they become professionals, they will already have a lot of experience. Hopefully in 4 or 5 years’ time, a cyclist from the Alberto Contador Foundation will become a reference”.

In fact, Félix is convinced that many of the cyclists who are in the Contador Foundation will be the reference in three years’ time in the under-23 category. “Yes, in three years we will see the fruits of the work we are doing, the result of this gear that has been put in place with the Foundation. There, in the under-23 category, we will see all the work we are doing now. That’s why I’m happy whether we win or not, because what I like is the work we are doing”, concludes Félix García Casas.