After his Volta a Catalunya win in March, Jonas Vingegaard visited Camp Nou to meet with fellow Dane and FC Barcelona defender Andreas Christensen. The triple Grand Tour winner is petite even by cycling’s standards, and was naturally dwarfed by his compatriot – lending the exchange of shirts a particularly comic feel. Vingegaard smiled proudly for a photo nonetheless.
Cycling and football don’t come into contact with each other very often. When they do, it feels odd. Lycra skinsuits and broken collarbones of the world’s eighth most-followed sport seem distinctly unglamorous compared to the razzle-dazzle of ‘the beautiful game.’
In just a few weeks time, the world’s football capital will make another unlikely collision with the cycling world as Barcelona prepares to host the third Spanish Tour de France Grand Départ. The team time trial circuit of stage one passes just shy of three kilometres from the Barcelona facilities.
But the connection between the men’s WorldTour and the top flight of football runs deeper than one might think.
In May 1992, Johan Cruyff’s FC Barcelona ‘Dream Team’ were crowned champions of Europe for the first time at Wembley. Ronald Koeman’s winning free kick in extra time made for an historic feat for the club and their fans, prompting revelry on a similar scale.
What began with Joan Gaspart, then Barcelona’s vice-president, diving headfirst into the Thames continued a month later on the slopes of Montserrat, Catalonia’s ‘sacred mountain’. There, the team toasted their success with a sporting challenge of a different kind: a bike race.
It was a decision, however, that 21-year-old Josep “Pep” Guardiola began to regret as he hauled himself up towards the Santa Maria de Montserrat monastery at a low-speed wobble.
Pep Guardiola struggled up the climb to Montserrat (Image credit: FC Barcelona archives)
“Some of the players were shocked,” recalls 1991 Vuelta a España champion Melcior Mauri, who was on hand to help the nation’s football superstars along the route from the Mini Estadi. Pedro Delgado, winner of the Tour de France in 1988, was also there.
“They were like, ‘Wow, is cycling really this hard?’ and I just answered, ‘Yes.’
“What for us was just a leisurely ride of 60 kilometers or so was a real challenge for them.”
Guardiola, too big for his bike and struggling to keep his front wheel straight on the category two climb, failed to hide his grimace from the half a million people who had come out to witness their heroes grunt up the hill.
The young midfielder, along with the rest of the Blaugrana, at least looked the part, donning lycra versions of their blue and garnet home kit complete with casquettes to match.
Mauri’s triumph at his home Grand Tour – the most glamorous of his 35 career wins – had propelled him to star status in his native Catalonia. But the escapades of the city’s beloved club had escalated the profile of the event five-fold.
“It was chaos on that climb, because it was a rare opportunity for people to mingle with their football idols,” he says.
“I was a big fan of Barca, so when they said we would be riding with them, it was really exciting. All the athletes of that era knew of each other, so even though we didn't know each other personally, when I spoke with Pep Guardiola or José Mari Bakero and the other footballers, they knew who I was and obviously I knew who they were.”
For all football’s reign, Miguel Induráin’s quintet of yellow jerseys from 1991 to 1995 took Spanish cycling and its fandom to new heights, and paved the way for the eras of Alberto Contador, Alejandro Valverde, and Joaquim Rodríguez.
Time trial specialist Melcior Mauri won the 1991 Vuelta with Spanish squad ONCE (Image credit: Melcior Mauri)
But perhaps a lesser-known fact about Barca’s cycling adjacency was that it once actually was cycling-adjacent. When Joan Laporta became club president in 2003, one of his projects was to resurrect its multi-sport identity, which included cycling.
An impromptu meeting between Laporta and Mauri saw FC Barcelona7 take shape, an amateur under 23 set-up which would see Mauri as its sports director. According to contemporary reports, Laporta’s dreams were big: there was hope of building a professional team one day able to compete in the Tour de France.
But Mauri was more realistic. Building an outlet able to compete with major cycling teams would require investment of just over €1.8 million.
“Our real objective was to support and develop young cyclists, helping them grow and progress in the sport. Fortunately, every year we were able to help at least one rider move up to the professional ranks, and that was really what the project was all about,” the 60-year-old explains.
Included in these riders was 26-year-old Sergi Escobar, who went on to win the men’s 4000 metre individual pursuit at the 2004 track cycling world championships.
The project, however, was relatively short-lived. A 2003 article from La Vanguardia cites that while riders and staff were enthusiastic about the project’s potential, the executives at Barca weren't aware of the financial commitment required to keep a cycling team afloat in the long term. Mauri was quoted in the article:
“Wherever we go, we attract fans. But Barça members keep asking us why we can't ride the Volta a Catalunya. They don't understand it. It's a disappointment for them."
In November 2006, Barca announced that the cycling team would be closed as part of a broader restructuring of the club’s amateur sports sections.
But while Guardiola never got the call up to FCBarcelona7, Mauri did credit his efforts on that climb to Montserrat.
“Guardiola performed very well. There was a bit of friendly rivalry among the players, and they clearly enjoyed competing with one another. From what I remember, Guardiola and Juan Carlos were among the quickest on the climb."
The backpage reports of that day, however, cite foul play. An account given by Spanish newspaper El Mundo del Futbol reports that, Guardiola, either eager to win or fed up with the whole ordeal, sought the horse-powered assistance of a motorbike to gain an advantage on his teammate Hristo Stoichkov, and crossed the line in first place.
Defenders Ricardo Serna and Juan Carlos followed his cunning tactic, but it was eighth-placed Albert Ferrer who was eventually declared the winner by popular vote. The right-back completed the challenge entirely under his own steam.
Guardiola nonetheless retained the intermediate sprint prize. He would, of course, go on to become the most successful manager in Barcelona’s history, winning 14 trophies across four seasons before continuing those feats at Bayern Munich and Manchester City – but hopefully it’s an achievement he still holds dear.
