Most people would look at Enric Mas’s palmarès and nod with approval: four Vuelta a España podium finishes in seven years, a win over Tadej Pogačar in the Giro dell’Emilia one-day race in 2022, and a handful of WorldTour victories. But inside Spain, his home country, adoration and respect for Mas is often in short supply.
A country that has been spoiled with general classification superstars since the 1940s, the hope was that Mas would seamlessly follow in the wheel tracks of Alberto Contador when El Pistolero retired in 2017, adding more Grand Tour victories to Spain’s tally of 48. But since Contador’s win at the 2015 Giro d’Italia, his third maglia rosa, no Spaniard has won a three-week race. It’s a historic drought.
And Movistar rider Mas, so often so close yet so far in his home Grand Tour, has borne the brunt of his nation’s impatience. Just two years ago, as Mas finished second in the Vuelta for a third time, a spectator chased him after a stage and called him a paquete – a colloquial term in Spanish used to call someone lousy or useless. The video went viral, people leapt to the Mallorcan rider’s defence, but social media (and occasional roadside) abuse of Mas persists.
Alejandro Valverde, who alongside Contador is Spain’s most successful rider this century, shakes his head in disbelief when asked about the treatment of Mas. “We’ve entered in a loop where this is just the way it is,” Valverde tells Rouleur of the vitriol his former teammate is subject to. “And I don’t know why they criticise him. When he attacks from afar, they criticise him; when he comes up short, they also criticise him. I don’t understand it.
“I think Spanish fans attack riders who don’t attack, but to attack for attacking’s sake doesn’t make sense. Enric thinks a lot, and for this reason people criticise him. When someone doesn’t feel 100%, they try to avoid errors and minimise risks and therefore don’t attack, and everyone is like this. Enric is a 10/10 rider and does everything he can.”
At the 2024 Vuelta, Mas went on the attack several times in an effort to claw back time on eventual winner Primož Roglič and long-time leader Ben O’Connor, winning over some doubters, but not all en route to third place. “He has shown with three second-places at the Vuelta that he has a Vuelta win in his legs,” Valverde says. After a disappointing Tour de France, it was further evidence of Mas’s tendency to finish a…