The Colombian cyclist Sergio Higuita is at the age of 25 the present and future hope of coffee cycling. Twice Colombian champion and 12th in the world ranking of the International Cycling Union in 2022, Higuita begins the 2023 season with the hope of shining in the classics and the dream of winning the world championship. In the middle, a rarefied atmosphere after the scandals of Miguel Ángel López and Nairo Quintana and the concern about the lack of generational relief in cycling in Colombia.
Colombian cyclist Sergio Andrés Higuita says that cycling was his first love. Now that at the age of 25 he has been a double Colombian national champion on the road and is part of the world’s cycling elite, this sport has already become his great love.
“For my soul it means everything. It is why I move, it is why I wake up every day, it is what is giving food to all my family, the roof, everything. It is my great love. Me every time I ride On a bicycle I feel free, I feel happy,” the cyclist told France 24 in the Colombian city of Bucaramanga, two days before the online national championship that another illustrious Colombian pedalist would end up winning: Esteban Chaves.
Higuita was far from renewing his throne as the bearer of his country’s tricolor jersey. He reached the finish line in 20th position, more than 2 minutes behind Chaves in a very colorful race, which was marked by constant attacks in the final kilometers. There Higuita suffered between the lashes of his rivals.
Chaves was the smartest and ended up crying with emotion at the finish line in Bucaramanga, proof of the difficulties he has gone through in the last years of his sports career.
In 2022, luck was elusive. A puncture prevented him from fighting for victory with Sergio Higuita at the finish line in the coffee-growing city of Pereira. On Saturday, February 4, 2023, in the last training session prior to the national, Chaves beat Higuita in a sprint over the same finish line that would see him raise his arms alone on Sunday. Premonition, perhaps. A symbolic transfer of the baton of command.
The dream of a child from a humble neighborhood of Medellín
Sergio Higuita shares a last name with another great representative of Colombian sports: goalkeeper René Higuita, goalkeeper for the Colombian national team and precursor of footwork for goalkeepers in world soccer. Cyclist and soccer player also share birthplace. Both come from the Castilla neighborhood of commune 5 of Medellín, one of the neighborhoods that rises on the hills of the capital of the department of Antioquia.
Little Sergio, born on August 1, 1997, dreamed of being a cyclist. 25 years later, his career seems like a dream. “First I dreamed of being in a WorldTour team. It was given to me and then with the effort and sacrifice that I have made, the discipline, with the love that I have given to this sport, because I have given my whole life to this sport since I was very young (…) It was a very long road, but fortunately I was able to get there and happy to have been able to achieve these results”.
But the beginnings were not easy. “Many people gave me components of the bicycle, they gave me the helmet, the shoes to go compete. They also gave me lodging and food. I was supported too much and that my dad had two jobs. He was going to work in a company and at night I went back to work as a locksmith at home. My mother also sold cosmetic products by catalog and even then there wasn’t enough for cycling”.
“I was a child who really wanted to get ahead with this sport. I was very focused, very disciplined. Like a German, square,” he told this medium with a smile, in clear reference to his teammates from the German team Bora- Hansgrohe for which he has been running since 2022.
Asked about the extra effort that Latin American cyclists must make to reach the elite European competition, Higuita gave an example of the recent Vuelta a San Juan, in Argentina, where the rider from Medellín took third place on the podium after the also Colombian Miguel Ángel López and the Italian Filippo Ganna.
There, he said, his fellow Germans were surprised at the kind of houses people live in. “And they were the good ones,” she pointed out with another smile that shows the pride of someone who now stands face to face with those who have grown in abundance.
We are like that because of what we have had to live. We are brave, disciplined, because we know how difficult it is to achieve things
For Higuita, it is precisely this awareness of knowing what it costs to get ahead that makes Colombian cyclists good. “We are like this because of what we have had to live. We are brave, disciplined, because we know how difficult it is to achieve things, because we know that to win something you have to sacrifice and give 200%.”
Does Colombian cycling have a relay?
During these last Colombian nationals, as in recent months, two questions hovered around the rarefied atmosphere. What will end up happening with the future of Nairo Quintana and Miguel Ángel López after their controversies over alleged doping or misuse of medications? Does they have a future? Colombian cycling?
For Rigoberto Urán, one of the best Colombian cyclists in recent years, the future is complicated, according to statements made to the media before the Colombian national. He assures that he does not see a generational change to the litter formed by Higuita and other names such as Daniel Felipe Martínez or Egan Bernal. Higuita himself affirms that if “in five years kids from 2001, 2002 or 2004 don’t start to arrive, there will be a concern.”
For the youngster from Bora-Hansgrohe, “the maturation that is being given to the younger boys” is not adequate, because “they are not being given the step from continental to continental pro” and then to World Tour, “which is like university, you go there and you have to pay for your apartment, live alone, be very professional and you have to learn that year after year”.
“If I had gone directly to the World Tour, I would have burst, because I was a 19-year-old boy who came to Europe and it was difficult for me,” he said.
The Spanish cyclist Oscar Sevilla, based in Colombia since he was involved in accusations of doping for the famous Operation Puerto, also pointed to France 24 similar problems. “There is a high level in Europe. The way of running, the technique, are different.”
“They arrive in Europe very young, sometimes they are not mentally prepared” and sometimes there is “an anxiety of wanting to show that they are so young” that is “killing them a little. You have to prepare them and make them aware that they should not be afraid of anyone, but I do respect”, pointed out the Spaniard.
The unknown Bernal
The great unknown of this 2023 season for coffee cycling will be whether Egan Bernal will be able to return to his best level after his serious accident while training in January 2022. In the Vuelta a San Juan he gave signs that he may have achieved optimal shape to compete at the best level, but “you must be patient, because it goes very fast,” said Sevilla, who has shared images of training sessions with the 2019 Tour de France champion on numerous occasions on social networks.
“He looks very strong and competitive. Winning or not winning is something else, because the level today is very high. Even if he hadn’t fallen, maybe he wouldn’t win easily. I already see it for to be there, but I think we have to wait another year to see Egan at 100%. I’m happy to see him, but he must also be a bit calm”, the veteran Spanish cyclist declared.
The gaze of Colombian cycling is now focused on Europe. Most of the “beetles” left for the old continent as soon as the Bucaramanga national race finished. Sergio Higuita, Daniel Felipe Martínez, the already Colombian champion Esteban Chaves and the rest of the current and previous generation riders will seek to continue maintaining the name of Colombia at the top of world cycling.
Nairo Quintana has a fight of his own in search of his innocence for the use of tramadol. He has an appointment with the International Cycling Union to help unlock a possible signing for a European team in the first or second category of cycling. Colombia loves him, as the fans demonstrated when they saw him on the third drawer of the podium in the national championship. Nairo cried, aware of the love of his fans in a country that at the moment only offers him a cycling that is still too small for the best Colombian cyclist in history.
Until he returns, perhaps Sergio Higuita has achieved the dream of winning a classic in the Ardennes. If he delays, who knows if he too could become the first Latin American cyclist to be world champion.
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