Basque pride and Fraternité

Brief reflections on Stage One

During their careers, Igor and Iker Flores rode for the Basque Euskaltel-Euskadi team, brothers united by their shared career, but separated in their unfortunate respective experiences as a lanterne rouge. To both be last in the Tour de France, battling against competitors riding as fast as humanly possible and beyond, their feats were sources of pride rather than ignominy, a recognition for the scale of their achievement that went beyond ordinary comprehension of sporting resilience.

In the suburbs of Bilbao, there appeared a mass hysteria, a final release of suppressed excitement after thirty years of Basque absence from the pinnacle of the cycling world. For Ion and Gorka Izagirre, today was a homecoming, a day to be subsumed by the rolling orange waves of Basque fandom, to trap the adrenaline and excitement of the occasion forever into their minds, if not in our camera lenses. Their careers have drifted into and out of each other’s paths. Their abilities similar, their age difference now the determinant in each man’s role for their now respective teams.