ALWAYS THINKING ABOUT THE GROUP. Basque rouleur Lourdes Oyarbide is a prototypical team rider, one who is inclined to put her team-mates’ interest above her own. Pushing on the flat and offering consistent performances at lumpier roads, Oyarbide is one of those riders who always aim to help the group be better, trying to help her friends feel protected on the road, and happy outside of it. One this group could not live without, and one of only four ‘founders’ -together with Biannic, González and Rodríguez- to remain Blues since the project’s first roster in 2018.

A MAGNIFICENT 2019; A ‘RETURN’ IN 2021. Before the pandemic, Lourdes Oyarbide was undoubtedly the most successful Spanish rider in 2019. She won the final stage of the Vuelta a Burgos, crowning a fantastic, long-range solo breakaway, and with another spectacular move, she granted herself a victory to remember, the Spanish road race championships in Lorca, where she spent four hours on the move, at over 35ºC, sustaining incredible effort ranges. And she was still able to put an icing on those wins with a GC podium at an international event, the Lotto Thüringen Ladies Tour (3rd), or a 6th place in the first-ever Clásica San Sebastián. In 2021, she recovered that brilliance by returning to the podium of the Spanish ITT Champs (3rd) and claiming an impressive 4th overall, one of her most remarkable international outings, in the Lotto Belgium Tour.

STEPS FORWARD. Owner of a Degree in Industrial Design and Product Development at the Mondragon University, Oyarbide started her full-time cycling efforts only one year before joining the Movistar Team. In 2017, wearing the Bizkaia-Durango jersey, she claimed six wins, including the Spanish ITT Champs; in 2018, she won the Burgos round of the Spanish Series in a year of dramatically different schedules, completely international, and hampered by a collarbone fracture in May; and in 2019, the world saw the breakthrough of a woman still very young (28) who’s got everything to succeed in life.