In the prologue to the 2002 Tour de France a tall brown-faced Colombian called Santiago Botero stood at centerstage to claim top honors for setting the best clocking at the individual time trial.
At the press conference with the winners a member of the international media covering the sporting event asked who they thought would win the most renowned stage of
Bicycle Diariescycling's Grand Tours.
On Botero's right, who had the second best clocking in the time trial, named the skipper Alejandro Valverde of the Spanish team Kelme. The two other cyclists at the press conference answered unanimously and pointed to the man on Botero's right. His name was Lance Armstrong.
The American then elaborated on his choice of Valverde and here is what I thought I had heard from him: “Alejandro's got Santiago. That makes
Valverde even more stronger.”
Working as a “domestique” for team Kelme, Santiago was asked to front the team's skipper in the races and bear the brunt of the wind drag to spare Valverde, who at that time was 27 years old and set to replace Miguel Indurain as Spain's main man in the Grand Tours.
Los Escarabajos of ColombiaThe role seemed tailor-fitted for Botero. At 30 years old Botero had been a veteran in lesser-known bike circuits across the world, and in his formative years he had competed in his native Colombia among cyclists known as the Los Escarabajos. That day in the Tour, Botero came into the race as a relative unknown, while the world already knew who Lance Armstrong was.
Translated “the beetles” in English, Los Escarabajo cyclists hailed from peasant families in the heavily Indian, mountainous regions of Colombia. They were hardened riders whose gaunt-like and stringy physiques proved conducive to aerodynamics, and had been known to haul themselves up and climb mountains with the same determination as that of the beetles.
Toughest bike race the int'l cycling has yet to seeStretching 15 days, the Tour of Colombia traverses the length, width, and height of the mountainous landscape in the country. It takes cyclists to head-piercing altitudes thousands of feet beyond anything found in the Tour de France.
The hardest stage of the so-called suffer fest is a 10,875-foot pass known as “La Linea.” “It's the toughest race course in the world,” said Botero, in which riders starting off in a lush, tropical valley grind their way 13 miles up to the freezing, oxygen-starved Andean plateau before embarking on a treacherous, winding descent back into the jungle heat.
And it's the race course that produced one of the few pros who had ever outpaced Armstrong in a Tour time trial.