Ángel Arroyo, the 1983 Tour de France runner-up who is widely credited with sparking a revival in Spanish cycling, died on Sunday at the age of 70.
Tributes have since flooded in from Spain any beyond for a rider whose palmarès might have ended up fairly modest in proportion but who nevertheless is seen as making a much bigger contribution to the sport in Spain and the decades of success that followed his career.
Spain had celebrated Tour de France victories thanks to Federico Bahamontes in 1959 and Luis Ocaña in 1973, but there had been a slump in the years that followed the latter’s success. Arroyo led the line for the Reynolds team when they started as a professional outfit in 1980, and his success was swiftly followed by Pedro Delgado, who won the Tour in 1988, and Miguel Indurain, who won it five times in the 1990s when the squad was known as Banesto.
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It’s now known as Movistar, in what is the longest-running team in the sport, and they have just celebrated a Spanish Vuelta a España winner in Enric Mas after years of success thanks to, among others, the former world champion Alejandro Valverde.
Valverde, who now works for the Spanish Cycling Federation, was among those to pay tribute to Arroyo on Monday, writing: “Rest in peace Ángel Arroyo. One of the great names of Spanish cycling in the 1980s.”
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The Movistar team added: “Ángel Arroyo has died, a legend of Spanish cycling and one of the great riders of our team. With him, in 1983, we stepped on the podium of the Tour de France for the first time. He was a fabulous rider and one of the best climbers of his time.”
As is common in professional cycling, Arroyo’s legacy is a complicated one. He was stripped of the overall title of the 1982 Vuelta a España after testing positive for the banned stimulant methylphenidate. The news came out a few days after Arroyo had celebrated what appeared to be a breakthrough achievement. Arroyo didn’t deny the offense but described the use of such substances as widespread and has described himself as the ‘moral winner’ of the race.
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In any case, Arroyo went on to make the podium of the Tour de France the following year, finishing runner-up behind the young Laurent Fignon. He did so after taking his most famous victory on the stage 15 time trial up the Puy de Dome volcano. The following year, he won the brutal mountain stage into Morzine and finished in sixth place overall.
“They were the seasons in which Spanish cycling recovered its pride and understood that it could once again compete with the French, Belgians, and Italians in the biggest races,” writes Nacho Labarga in Monday’s edition of the Spanish newspaper Marca.
“Arroyo was the link that connected two eras: that of the drought years and the generation that would go on to turn the Tour de France into familiar territory for Spanish cycling.”
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Arroyo’s success waned in the following years, and he retired in 1989 at the age of 32, but not before he’d been part of the Reynolds team that delivered Pedro Delgado to Tour de France glory in 1988.
“When a friend goes, they leave silence. But they also leave an entire life of memories. Those memories will always be the place where we will meet again,” Delgado wrote on social media on Monday, linking to a 2012 article he wrote about Arroyo and his impact on Spanish cycling.
“He was a cornerstone in building up cycling in our country,” Delgado wrote back then.
Arroyo’s legacy is further underlined by the cycling club that was created in his name by his neighbor, Victor Sastre, which gave rise to the likes of José María Jiménez, Pablo Lastras, and a certain Carlos Sastre – Victor’s son and the winner of the 2006 Tour de France.
After retiring from professional cycling, Arroyo, who had little in the way of savings, went on to run a carwash business for many years. “I’m at the age to retire, but I cannot do so,” he said in an interview with Marca in 2023. “If I stop, I wouldn’t be able to pay for heating in the winter or air conditioning in the summer. I live hand to mouth.”
“Some might see my work as a humiliation, but for me it is not. I like it and I enjoy what I do. I have the life of any other worker.”
Arroyo, who previously was diagnosed with cancer, died on Sunday after being hospitalised for several days with what was described as ‘a serious illness’ in the Spanish press.
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