Colombian Miguel Angel Lopez, surprise of the Tour de France 2020?

Text by: Farid Achache Follow

3 min

The Tour de France, the major event of the year on which the entire economic balance of cycling depends, will start from Nice on August 29. Colombian Miguel Angel Lopez, considered a potential winner of the Big Loop in the coming years, will be at the start for the first time.

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Colombian Miguel Angel Lopez will certainly remember his first Tour de France with an unprecedented date, and the permanent threat linked to the coronavirus epidemic. The 26-year-old rider throws himself into the deep end of the Tour in Nice with a trio of favorites in front of him: Egan Bernal, compatriot and outgoing winner, Slovenian Primoz Roglic and French Thibaut Pinot.

Sons of disadvantaged peasants

Miguel Angel Lopez will be the leader of the Astana team. Third in the Giro and in the Vuelta in 2018, the man nicknamed “  Superman  ” declined slightly last year in the other two big laps (7th in the Giro, 5th in the Vuelta). But the visit of the five mountain ranges of the Hexagon and an unprecedented arrival at the Loze pass, above Méribel (Savoie), could be a strong argument for the Colombian climber, used to the effort at altitude.

Born in Pesca in Boyacá, located in the Andes region in central-eastern Colombia, Lopez is a son of underprivileged peasants who started competitive cycling in 2011. In his early days, Lopez was advised by Rafael Acevedo, a former traveling companion of Luis Herrera, pioneer of Colombian cycling in Europe. "  I have always encouraged and assisted him materially," explains the former professional . I know he's going to be a great runner at the world level.  "

A strong personality

On the 2014 Tour de l'Avenir, Miguel Angel Lopez won the sixth stage and then the general classification. It was after this victory that he was recruited by the Kazakh team Astana and his manager Alexandre Vinokourov saw him as a future winner of the Tour de France.

“  After having done a few Giro, several Vuelta, gained some experience, you learn that with every step, every situation that life offers you, you get good things out of it. The first time we go to the Tour, we are going to have a big dream, I will realize my dream, the one I had when I was a child, that of being at the start of the Tour de France  ”, recently confided Lopez at the MundoCiclistico site.  

Miguel Angel Lopez owes his nickname - "Superman" - to the fact that he managed to repel two attackers who tried to steal his bike and who stabbed him twice in the right leg. Without a doubt, the youngster is endowed with a strong personality. During the penultimate stage of the Tour of Italy 2019, he also hit a spectator who knocked him down.

In this 2020 Tour unlike any other, marked by the Covid-19 pandemic, Miguel Angel Lopez could be the pleasant surprise who would succeed the other Colombian nugget, Egan Bernal.   

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