Alejandro Ropero, a ‘veteran’ rookie for the continental team
The experience, they say, is a degree and for this reason it could be defended that Alejandro Ropero is not a neoprofessional to use. The Granadino performs well during the training sessions of the first pre-season concentration of Kometa-Xstra at Oliva Nova Beach & Golf Resort. “It always helps to have familiar faces in the team,” he says in reference to his countryman José Antonio García, who promoted the continental team this year, or two riders with whom he has run this campaign in the U23 team, such as the Andalusian Sergio García or the Italian Alessandro Fancellu.
The truth is that Ropero, runner-up in the 2019 Spanish Cup and final podium of two demanding events such as the Vuelta al Bidasoa or the Vuelta a Zamora, in whose generals he finished third and second, respectively, with two stage victories in the bag, already had the opportunity to know how to compete in the professional field during the summer of 2018. An opportunity in her second year in the U23 category. Then she competed in the Vuelta a Burgos, in which she got involved in a breakaway in a day in which, in the end, the Italian Matteo Moschetti won the victory. “That experience was wonderful, I will never be able to forget it, and without a doubt it has been useful for me because I got to know the team or the members of the staff even more. That experience was super enriching for me”.
Ropero goes to the continental with the logical desire of the debutant, but also with the self-respect that every change of this style provokes. “Do you want to start competing’ A lot! And above all I want to do well, to return from the first moment the confidence they have shown in me. I’m clear that this is my first year, that this is another cycle and that you always have to face an adaptation. But the desire is always there, you don’t get lost. And above all, I also hope that health accompanies it and that there are no crashes”, he commented.
“It is clear that at this level you run in a different way. And above all that you compete against the best in the world. In that sense you have to take it with philosophy and have very clear where you are with respect to others. There will be tests without so much presence of WorldTour teams in which, so to speak, we will fall more responsibility when it comes to achieving results and others, on the contrary. But it’s a year I’m looking forward to”.
Ropero arrives to the continental set after a year in which Juan Pedro López has left the structure to arrive at the WorldTour. López has been the first cyclist to pass through all the sports structures of the Alberto Contador Foundation after stopping at the same from the Campus of Selection La Mafia se sienta a la mesa in Zaragoza. Both Ropero and Sergio García from Cadiz have followed this path until now. Diego Pablo Sevilla is another historic, although he joined the first youth team, prior to the first edition of the Campus. “The truth is that the connection we have is quite good and, personally, I’m very comfortable with the teammates of this year’s team,” concluded the cyclist from Otura.
(automatic translation, sorry for mistakes)
