Fall, fracture and retirement: this is how Rigoberto Urán’s last dance in the Grand Tours ends

Rigoberto Urán’s career in the major cycling events – the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a España – has ended at the age of 37, after a fall on the sixth day of the latter competition and with a fracture in the greater trochanter of his left hip.

It was not the best way to say goodbye in the history of the three-week races that he participated in in 2009, when he rode his first Tour, but sport and cycling are like that, they ‘punish’ when they want without looking at names, numbers or resumes and it was Urán’s turn, who since February of this year had said that 2024 would be his last season as a cyclist.

Last Saturday, when he began his adventure in the Vuelta, he said that he wanted to win a stage, to leave through the front door, that this was his dream, although it seemed far away, but fate had another way of saying goodbye to him, getting into an ambulance with 19 kilometres to go in the 187-kilometre stage between Jerez de la Frontera and Yunquera, where he had left his hopes of leaving the world’s major stage races in the best possible way.

The runner was taken to the finish line. He got off limping on his left leg, but he moved on his own with the help of a member of the EF medical team, and he got on the cart where they took his X-rays.

“He mentioned that he had pains in his head, back and waist. We believe it was a serious accident, but he is fine,” EF team doctor Jon Greenwel told ESPN.

The EF then released the official medical report: “X-rays showed a fracture of the greater trochanter in his left hip. He does not need surgery and will return home to recover. This is not the way we wanted to see Rigo finish his last dance.” It was said. Uran was in 134th place overall, 17 minutes and 39 seconds behind the leader, Primoz Roglic.

End of a cycle, after running 25 Grand Tours

There, on that piece of asphalt, there were 25 great participations in those events, a record that is difficult to match by any other Colombian cyclist, since Urán was the one who had taken part in one of them the most times in his years as a professional.

Of those 25 times, the man born in the Antioquia municipality of Urrao on January 26, 1987, had only had four retirements, three of them in the Vuelta and one in the Giro, this being the fifth, in Spain, the race in which he was never able to get on the podium.

His adventure in Europe began in 2006, when he joined the Tenax team in Italy, under the command of Fabio Bordonalli, who welcomed him at the request of Marlon Pérez, another Colombian who was in the group. Urán leaves cycling with two second places in the Giro, one in 2013 and another in 2014.

He was also runner-up in the Tour de France in 2017, when he was beaten by Chris Froome, who in an interview with EL TIEMPO pointed out that the most difficult of the four titles he won in the Tour was that of 2017, as it was the shortest difference he obtained, only 54 seconds over Urán who was his great threat during the competition. But there is more to the story.

“Uran fell ill that year and that meant that the plans had to be changed. She suffers from allergies and she did not do well in the spring. She did not perform well in Liège Bastonia Liège and in the Fleche Wallonne, so we had to rethink things and she had to go to the Tou, a competition in which she was not sure of her participation,” Juan Manuel Gárate, her coach at EF, once said.

For Gárate, Urán was the strong man of a team that almost depended on what he did, s
ince that year was the last of Cannondale sponsorship.

Pressure was not an enemy for Urán, who was already a seasoned cyclist.

But Rigoberto Urán still has many satisfactions in his history in this type of competition, as he is one of the few cyclists in the country who has won stages in all three.

He won the finish in Altopiano del Montasio at the 2013 Giro. The following year, he donned the pink leader’s jersey after winning the 42.2-kilometre individual time trial finishing in Barolo.

The Tour saw him win in a close 2017 final in a stage that ended in Chambery and in which he defeated the local, Warren Barguil, andA triumph that required a photo finish to decide who was the winner of the day.

All he needed was victory in the Vuelta and that came in 2022, when Urán crossed the finishing line first at the Monasterio de Tentudía, after 162 kilometers.

During his 25 ‘laps’, Urán rode the Tour 10 times, the Giro seven times, the Vuelta eight times and finished in the ‘Top’ 10 nine times, a statistic that is difficult to match.

As he himself always maintained, he was not a rider who won a lot and in his personal account there are only 14 victories, very few, really, for a cyclist of his category, his weight, his personality, his courage.

The hip fracture injury does not mean he will need surgery, according to the team’s statement, but it is not known if he will compete again. He will have the opportunity to say goodbye on his bike to fans who idolize him, but of course he is saying goodbye to his great history in the three Grand Prix, which he was unable to win, but in which he was a great figure inside and outside the peloton.

LYSANDRO RENGIFO

Editor of EL TIEMPO

@LisandroAbel

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