Pedro Delgado (63 years old) feels in top form. He is still linked to the world of cycling. She goes out to train, maintains her fine figure and also enjoys from the other side of the screen, on tv, commenting for RTVE he Tour de France and the return. There are numerous qualities of the Segovian, punctuality being one of those that is not on the said list, and that reason gave rise to an event that is now practically a legend: his delay in the opening time trial of the 1989 Tour de France . After winning the previous Tour, he went 2:40 late to the exit ramp in Luxembourg. “It is by far the topic on which I am asked the most in my life. I also fell apart because of an asshole in the next day’s stage ”, he recounted on his visit to AS, which he attended fifteen minutes late, so as not to lose habit. “It could not be otherwise. I’m here now”, he said when he entered the newsroom. The stay was for a special reason: Perico’s loneliness. A new book about his experiences, his memories and, beyond all the commented stories about him, the way he lived it from the inside, behind closed doors, only taking refuge within himself.
Narrated in the first person, the author is Ainara Hernando, a journalist from Vitoria. In La Vuelta 2019, on a rest day in Pau, Perico quoted Ainara for this idea, and the woman from Alava accepted this important challenge. Four years later, a pandemic in between, the book came to light in 2023, and a few days ago both did not stop signing copies in Madrid. “With this title, there are people who see me in the supermarket and ask me if I’m okay, if something’s wrong with me. The meaning is different. I tell everything from the inside, how I felt and how I lived each moment, since I was little Pedrito who had an imaginary bike in Segovia, because it was a wooden chair with pedals. There is still a lot to tell, especially for younger people who only know me from commenting and MasterChef ”, says Delgado, who continues to be extremely popular.
No theme is avoided in the book: “The positive for probenecid (substance that was not prohibited by the UCI) in the Tour that I won in 1988 of course it is played. The news came out in the evening and the next morning it was on all the front pages. That day I arrived at the signature control scared… I went out in front of the public and everyone applauded, with shouts of ‘Perico, Perico!’. It was incredible”. Justice agreed with Pedro, who was able to finish on the top of the podium in Paris for the first and only time, although he acknowledges having had the legs “to have won one more”. “The most difficult thing was the beginning, the first chapters. I did not see Pedro run, and the current image of him proves that in the past it was another, especially from the perspective of the press ”, explains Ainara after studying boxes and boxes of newspapers from the time, including copies of AS.
“I was always a rebel. He was a little piece of shit, but he didn’t shut me up in front of anyone. Some journalists kept pointing at me. We could only call home two or three times, because it was so expensive, and my family asked me if everything they said about me was true. It pissed me off. Was it edge? It may be, but I was always focused on what was mine, once the pressure was released I could speak better. Our job was to win races, not to be nice”, says the winner of La Vuelta on two occasions (1985 and 1989). In the latter, a great understanding with the Soviet Ivanov allowed him to ratify his final victory: “We also spoke in the book about the legend of the envelope. Yes, I sent him one with my address and thanks. Thank you so much”.
There were other runners with more wins, but boom of Pedro Delgado in the 80s marked an entire Spanish generation eager for success: “Unknowingly, with my attitude, I conquered the hearts of the people. My mother died in the middle of the Tour de France and a lot of mothers mourned that loss as if it were close. Other people tell me that their grandmothers had me as an idol. Life is fixed emotions and there are some that I woke up that are in the memory forever. Now, for this year’s Tour, she has a favorite: “Pogacar is more to the general taste. Vingegaard is also a great champion. I hope it’s a nice battle. I don’t think it’s a golden age of cycling, but the way Van der Poel, Van Aert, Evenepoel run… does remind me of an attitude that was being lost, the one I used to see when I was little.” From that childhood, and until his retirement, he treats ‘La soledad de Perico’, everything about the life of an illustrious Spanish sport.