<\/p>\n
“It was tough at the time, because there was no ban, but behind the scenes, there was pressure from the UCI and from organizers, and we weren\u2019t able to race.” He reflects: “That\u2019s the hypocrisy of cycling, and a lot of the same people who were there then are still there now, so little has changed. But now I just see it as something that happened to us.”<\/p>\n
Mancebo believes he was close to returning with the Movistar team in 2012, although the deal never made it past the line. “(Eus\u00e9bio Unzu\u00e9, Movistar manager, ed.) used the sponsors as an excuse. I don\u2019t know if that was true or not. But that was the last time I tried to return to the ProTour.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mancebo had spent the previous two seasons with Rock Racing, the controversial outfit run by American Michael Ball, alongside the likes of Oscar Sevilla and Tyler Hamilton. “Michael Ball was a little bit crazy,” he shares. “He had a lot of money \u2013 or at least he looked like he had a lot of money \u2013 and his craziness took the team right along with him.”<\/p>\n
\u201cThe kit was flashy with the skull and crossbones, and everything was so extravagant. But it was also very professional. That was probably the team where I enjoyed myself the most in my whole life, where I had the most fun. And the results were good too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Almost two decades on however, and after six seasons with the Japanese Matrix Powertag squad, the 49-year-old heads to China for a new challenge, having become the oldest winner of a professional race at the start of 2025. “This chance in China came up, and I\u2019m very happy \u2013 a new experience, a new team, new motivation. It\u2019s all good for the head,” he continues.<\/p>\n
“I only met the manager a few days ago, so I\u2019m slowly integrating into the team,” the Spaniard added. His schedule is likely to be based mostly in the team’s home country with possibilities to race in the Philippines and Uzbekistan.<\/p>\n
With age seemingly no barrier, Mancebo would not be drawn on a retirement date, instead insisting the legs will decide. \u201cThere\u2019s no date in mind: I would like to continue for as long as I can. But it\u2019s complicated, of course. Still, I hope to do well this year and continue into 2027,” he concluded.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “It was tough at the time, because there was no ban, but behind the scenes, there was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-328743","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}