Pello Bilbao
Category
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SportTranscription
00:00 Yeah, of course I heard the story of Gino's dog.
00:09 A nice story, no?
00:12 In the beginning when he explained this to me I thought he was joking.
00:17 But yeah, I think he has also this small connection with the Basque Country.
00:24 I would be great to continue with this connection and if we can give him a nice victory here
00:29 in the home stages for sure.
00:32 So why is cycling so important in the Basque Country?
00:37 I cannot explain it exactly because in the end cycling is important already from many
00:43 many years before I was born.
00:48 Already in the times with Marino Lejarret, with Chomim Perurena.
00:54 So we always had a big culture around the cycling competition also.
01:02 And I guess that this comes because we are quite a small country and also the towns are
01:10 not far from the other ones.
01:13 So the bicycle was a nice way for moving between towns.
01:20 Also for kids to go to school and although the weather is not the best one, I think many
01:29 people use the bikes just to move.
01:33 And from there they started and developed as riders later.
01:42 Of course I know all the roads from first and second and also third stage are my usual
01:50 training roads.
01:53 I think it's going to be also super nice for these first two stages of the tour.
02:03 It's different parkour, we are not used to have this elevation and this hard stage, serious
02:11 stage from the very beginning.
02:14 But I think it's also the right measure.
02:17 It's not too hard, it's going to be tight until the end.
02:24 And the battle will be, in my opinion, in the last peak climb or maybe even in the last
02:32 kick in the finish line.
02:35 Yeah, obviously the race comes in a difficult moment for me.
02:43 When all this happened, I thought that I was not going to be able to arrive in the best
02:50 conditions to the Tour.
02:51 Because in that moment everything loses the sense.
02:56 Also racing lost sense, continuing in the race didn't have any sense for us.
03:02 In two or three days I was not really optimistic with the Tour, I was not really motivated.
03:08 But I turned back home, I spent some time with my family.
03:15 And then I noticed that this was going to be a unique day in my life.
03:23 And all the job that was done until this moment was not going to be possible to demonstrate
03:34 it.
03:35 So the only way was to change these difficult feelings, these sad emotions and turn them
03:43 into energy to make something special.
03:46 And now I'm in this point, just trying to give my best, to take all the good vibrations
03:55 from our fans and try to do something special in the first stages here in the Basque Country.
04:04 And obviously also as we are going to have the logo right for Gino, it's not going to
04:11 be just for the first stages.
04:16 All the Tour is going to be with us.
04:20 Also the number one is going to be for him.
04:24 And yeah, after the Tour I think also we will continue always having him in our minds because
04:34 he was a special guy, not just as a cyclist, he was so nice person and we could learn also
04:41 many good things from him.
04:43 So I think these kind of guys that live something more than a good palmarès.
04:53 [Music]