Former cyclist Ángel Arroyo, second in the 1983 Tour, dies at 70

The former professional cyclist Angel Arroyo Boats (El Barraco -Ávila-, 1956), which on August 2 completed 70 years, He died on Sunday night at the Ávila Care Complex, after nearly two weeks hospitalized facing a serious illness detected half a year ago.

A native of El Barraco, land of other great cyclists such as Carlos Sastre, winner of the 2008 Tour de France, José María Jiménez Sastre, better known as ‘El Chava’, and Francisco Mancebo, Arroyo was one of the great references of Spanish cycling in the 1980s.

In that decade, being a companion of Pedro Delgado and Rubén Gorospe in the ranks of the legendary Reynolds, won the 1982 Vuelta Ciclista a Españaalthough days later he was disqualified after fail an anti-doping test in the seventeenth stage and penalized with 10 minutes, which placed him in thirteenth place in the general classification.

Stream, which He always denied having doped, He achieved his best result the following year, obtaining a second position in the Tour de Francebeing only surpassed by the Frenchman Laurent Fignon.

The retirement of the Avila rider from professional cycling took place in the year 1989contributing to the beginning of a golden stage for Spanish cycling with the help of ‘Perico’ Delgado, Miguel Induráin or Alberto Contadorsubsequently.

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

The mayor of Ávila, Jesús Manuel Sánchez Cabrera, has regretted, on behalf of the entire municipal Corporation and the city, the death of someone who was active for a decade, “becoming a reference in the world of Ávila and national cycling.”

Likewise, it has decreed two days of official mourningduring which the city’s flag will fly at half-mast.