A robot in disguise?
Cervélo’s Theo Bos won the opening stage of the Vuelta Castille y Leon. Whilst the sprint wasn’t the biggest – Graeme Brown was the only big name rider in top-10 – it’s still a solid result, all the more since the stage to Burgos had a second category climb on the parcours.
In case you didn’t know, Bos was a track rider with 10 World and Olympic medals to his name. Now some riders can make the transition between the track and the road, Bradley Wiggins is the most obvious example. But these riders come from the endurance events, like the pursuit, points and madison races. Only Bos was a sprint and kilo rider, his efforts were ultra-short explosive events. No one has ever made this transformation in men’s cycling, the remarkable Connie Carpenter and Clara Hughes have done this in women’s racing but without knocking their talent, the level of competition was smaller. Bos is simply a remarkable talent and he must have a mindset capable of taking on any challenge.
Bos’s transformation is like Usain Bolt going from the 100m and 2o0m events and taking up the 3,000m steeplechase or even the marathon – and then winning at the elite level. It’s an incredible story for Bos, to go from the confines of a 200m sprint on a wooden track to a 158km hilly race across Spain, just to finish is a worthy effort. The efforts are so different, plus Bos has to cope with racing each day.
Impressively he is also still very quick on the track, clocking 10.2 seconds for the 200m in a test session.
(Photo: L’Equipe)
He is doing something interesting. I want to see how he gets on with stage racing, whether he could do a 3 week tour and survive, if so then he will be an asset to Hushovd.