Alejandro Osorio broke the winning streak of World Tour team cyclists in the Tour Colombia. Never before had a continental team won a stage in the competition and, even less so in the way in which ‘El Pony’ did it, as they call the cyclist. It was a historic day for the Colombian team and for the cyclist, who at this moment is the rider with the most victories of the year.
What happens with the GW Erco Shimano is no coincidence. Not only in the National Championships or in the Vuelta al Táchira did he make a great approach in races where he needed it, he also achieved it in the Tour Colombia in the third stage in which he once again beat the Wordl Tour cyclists in a great finish. in which he came one-on-one with Rodrigo Contreras and beat him at the finish line.
One of the architects of the Colombian team’s good moment is its coach, coach Luis Alfonso Cely. The ‘teacher’ is clear about how to make the strategies that are proposed before the stages normally work out and he has young talents on his team who understand cycling from teamwork and camaraderie.
Like what happened with Osorio and Bustamante in the final phase of the third fraction of the Tour. “I went with Bustamante and he took a risk for me. He was ahead too and could have gone for the victory, but he didn’t, he sacrificed himself for me,” Osorio said after his victory. And that was almost the same thing that happened at the Nationals, when the team took care of him and carried him until the final effort that left him as national champion.
After Osorio’s problem with Bahrain and what he has had to go through in the last years of his life, Cely has been a support and help for him and, although he prefers not to remember what happened in the past, he knows that Alejandro must go step by step and much more after this great start to the season.
You make history by having the first stage winner who is not from the World Tour…
“We dreamed about that, a few days ago we made a video, a few days ago we made a video about it in the company and it talked about that, that I dreamed that I wanted to be the first continental team to win a stage in the Tour Colombia, we have achieved it with “Alejandro, who has been improving every day and brings this joy to Colombia that this team formed in the country has won this stage.”
How was the preparation for this stage to occur?
“Well, the truth is we wanted to win from this Wednesday’s stage, Alejandro is going very well and defends himself well in the middle mountains, unfortunately the escape did not allow us to compete head-on in the stage with Alejandro, but we knew that he, like Bustamante and Brandon are very good circuit riders and today they did very well here, we had five riders, three in the lot, two in the breakaway and that shows that we have a strong block and we worked well, Arroyave and Brandon helped push. In the end we were able to be there to win.”
How have they managed to get Alejandro back?
“No, I think it’s better to leave the past behind. It is more the positive thing that has been done with him, making him aware of his great abilities, supporting him both his family and the group of sports assistants and his teammates themselves and well, he has done a lot of his part to improve, to change and take the cycling like a professional because with the conditions he has had, first, to become a professional and I also have his brother who gives him motivation and support and with whom we are also doing a great job so that Alejandro continues with these victories and , why not, see if he can return to the World Tour again.”
And what is Alejandro like?
“He is a calm, happy runner, sometimes a little impulsive, impetuous, he is a great human being and I believe that past experience helped him mature and today he is a totally different person.”
The team has daring…
“It has been planned. We planned to win the national championship, we planned to have a great Tour Colombia, we did a concentration at the beginning of the year, we have great trainers who help me, so all this is very useful for us to have these beautiful results.”
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But the strategy is also yours…
“Strategically we have always shown capacity as a sports director, in Vuelta a Colombia, Clásicos, Vuelta de la Juventus, we have won more than seven, but I believe that for this to work you have to have a group aware that the most important thing is the teamwork and the brands and sponsors, anticipate that the runners do not see it as a personal benefit but as a collective effort.”