Arroyo, the benchmark of Spanish cycling in the 80s, before Perico and Induráin

Death to the 70 years of the professional ex-cyclist Ángel Arroyo leave the spanish cycling without one of his great references of the 80sthe man who paved the way in the Tour of France to Pedro Delgado and Miguel Induraínwith his second place in 1983.

Stream (El Barraco -Ávila-, 1956) died on Sunday night in the Ávila Care Complexafter nearly two weeks hospitalized facing a serious illness detected half a year ago.

Natural of The Barrackland of other great cyclists such as Carlos Sastre, winner of the 2008 Tour de France, José María Jiménez Sastrebetter known as ‘El Chava’, and Francisco Mancebo, Arroyo was one of the greats of the eighties, when he returned to Spain to the honors of the French race.

Stream He began his professional career in 1979 on the Moliner-Bereko teamin which he remained until 1980the year in which he won the Return to Castile and won a stage of the Return to Germany.

In 1981, already in the ZORwon a stage and the mountain classification of the Return to Asturias and the following year, with the ReynoldsHE proclaimed winner of the Vuelta a Españaalthough days later he was disqualified after failing an anti-doping test in the seventeenth stage and was penalized 10 minutes, which placed him in thirteenth place in the general classification.

He great Arroyo momentwho always denied having doped, arrived in 1983, when, in the ranks of a mythical Reynolds with an incipient Perico Delgado and Rubén Gorospe, debuted in Tour and finished second, only surpassed by Laurent Fignon, In addition to imposing itself on the time trial with the Puy de Dome, which meant the return of the best spanish cycling to the most important stage race in the world.

The following year he returned to the Tour and finished in sixth place in the general classification, completing two seasons in which the spanish cycling returned to the path of competing for the top in the international panorama, contributing to the beginning of a golden era for the spanish cycling by the hand of ‘Perico’ Delgado, winner of the Tour in 1988, and Miguel Induráin, winner five times (1991-95).

In 1985 His physical problems began, which caused him to spend a long season without notable victories and led him to abandon the practice of cycling in 1989.

Stream He then explained that the origin of these problems went back to a brucellosis (Malta fever), “which took a long time to detect, since at first it seemed like a temporary illness.”

Then some health problems of his wife were added that represented a very strong moral blow from which it was difficult for him to recover and, although he tried later, he was unable to regain his form and left the professional cycling at 32 years old, Later, he founded a car wash tunnel company in which he continued working.

After knowing his death in the capital of Avila this Sunday, the Ávila City Council has mourned the loss of Angel Arroyo, while conveying his condolences to family, friends and relatives of the cyclist, whose funeral chapel will be installed this same Monday, at noon, in the Superunda palace, where the legendary Julio Jiménez, in June 2022.

Likewise, it has decreed two days of official mourning, during which the city’s flag will fly at half-mast in honor of “one of the great figures of national cycling in the 80s”, as he lamented the Spanish Cycling Federation.