Movistar Team reaches 900 victories
07 May 2018

Statistical analysis

Barbero's victory at Vuelta a Madrid takes Abarca Sports' men's squad to just one hundred short of their first 1,000 wins in their successful history in the pro scene, started in 1980.

The victory notched up by Carlos Barbero on Sunday’s final stage of the Vuelta a Madridmarks another big milestone for the Movistar Team. Since its inception as a pro squad under Reynolds’ title sponsorship in 1980, the European men’s teams owned by the current Abarca Sports organisation for the last 39 years, under the direction of José Miguel Echávarri and Eusebio Unzué, have obtained already 900 victories, a figure which very few other teams in the history of cycling can compare themselves to.

The last 100 victories have arrived in just over three years, since Alejandro Valverde claimed the 800th success for the team with his third Flèche Wallonne on 22nd April 2015. Actually, the last 200 wins by the Movistar Team have been grabbed in barely six seasons, the 700th triumph for the Blues having been claimed by Jesús Herrada at a stage of the 2012 Vuelta a Asturias-.

Together with its current era under Telefónica’s support, Abarca Sports saw its most successful series coming during the second half of the 1990s, reaching their record number of wins in a single seation twice consecutively -35 in 1997, then 36 in 1998 – an achievement only equalled by 2016- and taking themselves from 300 victories (1995) to 500 (2002) in just seven years. Now, the Movistar Team will fight to double those five hundred victories, the current 900 by the men’s squad joined by five others with big symbolic value: those obtained by Gloria Rodríguez (MurciaRoldán), Mavi García (Noja), Eider Merino (Balmaseda) and Lourdes Oyarbide (Villasana de Mena), the first wins by their new women’s team.

Barbero expressed himself yesterday in Madrid “happy about the team reaching such a magnificent milestone with my win here. It’s been seven already for me with these colours, and hopefully there will be many more to come – we’ll continue to work hard to make that possible and improve everyday.

MOVISTAR TEAM / ABARCA SPORTS’ WINNING MILESTONES

1 – 8th May 1980 – Dominique Arnaud – Vuelta a España, st. 16A (León)
100 – 1st April 1985 – José Luis Laguía – Vuelta al País Vasco, st. 1 (Alto de Ibardin)
200 – 20th June 1991 – Miguel Indurain – Bicicleta Vasca, st. 2 (Tolosa)
300 – 7th May 1995 – Miguel Indurain – Vuelta a la Rioja, overall classification
400 – 19th August 1998 – Jeremy Hunt – Volta a Portugal, st. 10 (Póvoa de Varzim)
500 – 18th August 2002 – Iván Gutiérrez – GP Llodio
600 – 31st July 2007 – Vicente Reynès – Circuito de Getxo
700 – 28th April 2012 – Jesús Herrada – Vuelta a Asturias, st. 2A (Avilés)
800 – 22nd April 2015 – Alejandro Valverde – Flèche Wallonne
900 – 6th May 2018 – Carlos Barbero – Vuelta a Madrid, st. 3 (Paseo de la Castellana)

** Data subject to careful statistical revision after the Movistar Team’s new History section on our website was published in 2018. There was an erroneous mention in 2015, after a win by Adriano Malori at the Circuit de la Sarthe, to the team’s 800th victory at the time. After further verification of previous data on the team’s wins, it was observed this year that some of the victories attributed to the squad were incorrect or lacked any pro categorisation, which ‘delays’ that milestone to Valverde’s third success in Huy.

** This account does not include any victories by other squads associated to the current men’s professsional, European structure called Movistar Team.