Movistar Team cannot be understood without Eusebio Unzué. The team principal explains through this conversation the present and future of the project. A journey also useful to get closer to a key figure in the history of world cycling.
The times when Eusebio Unzué started working in cycling are really far away. Back in the seventies, only aged 18 and just after finishing with his junior cyclist stage, he jumped from the bike to the car, in order to lead the amateur team. The years have gone by, but his lively spirit remains unchanged. A detail shows it when he talks, joking and laughing, about Facebook, Twitter and other technological tools. “I belong to a generation which has found this social phenomenon a bit unprepared. But, with effort and constance, I’m getting used to all those social networks, since they are present and future.”
It’s admirable to see how big the will to learn by Unzué is. Even more if we take into account he is seen as a role model in the world of cycling. A Resultan admirables las ganas de aprender que transmite. Más aún si tenemos en cuenta que hablamos de alguien que es visto como un referente en el mundo del ciclismo. A gamble on the work and effort he now tries to extend to the umpteenth project he leads, with the same desire to do well than in the first one. “For us it’s an immense luck to start with the fifth version of a team that started riding back in 1980. Actually, we’re as thrilled as we ever were with such great challenges, this one surely a really important one.” In his expectations, “to live a cycle like the one we had in previous eras, with Reynolds and Banesto, or more recently with Illes Balears and Caisse d’Epargne.”
The essence of the project revealed, Unzué now keeps a special place to express his sincere gratitude towards the sponsor that makes possible the Movistar Team adventure. “I didn’t remember to have received big news for really much time like the one I got in August 11, 2010, when Telefónica gave us thumbs up to be birth of Movistar Team.” A sponsoring partnership that is somehow a step forward from Movistar to support cycling. “Maybe today, the easiest thing for a corporation would be putting their money on another sport, but they relied on us, so I think their arrival is a reason of pride.” “Just because of that,” continues on solemn voice, “I want to thank with all my heart to so many people who trust us, and brought their wills together so Movistar Team can be a joyful reality.” “We hope,” the Navarran said to complete this chapter, “to be capable returning so much confidence and make all fans of this noble sport quiver.”
Along the lines of his previous thoughts, Unzué makes a passionate defense of a sport “built on the base of suffering,” he emphasizes. “Cycling is made out of serious lads, devoted to what they do 24 hours a day, and with an incredible ability to sacrifice.” A profile that matches, he says, 98% of the pro riders. “And the reality is that all of us are being identified with the remaining 2%, an uncontrollable minority. I think that’s unfair.”
Because of all this, Eusebio Unzué encourages fans to keep relying on a noble sport, as he defines it. “We hope you to keep giving us that support no necessary in cycling, after difficult times where its image was discredited.” At the moment, it seems to go in the right direction. “Movistar is transmitting us illusion for the project itself, and also for the signs of support people are dropping through social networks from the very first day.”
To tie up all loose ends, let’s return to past that opened the interview. Years that we revive as Unzué suffers from a slight nostalgia attack. “I remember the first team, how the material, the communications were…” Those were the days!, he seems to be thinking as he focuses to bring forward Movistar Team, a name associated to the most avantagarde technology. And, just like always, Eusebio Unzué will be there to learn something new.