Pedro Delgado, better known as Perico, was the protagonist this Wednesday of the informative breakfasts of the Sports Press Association of Valladolid (APDV), where the emblematic Segovian cyclist made a complete assessment of his career since his beginnings to his current role as commentator. .
In a packed room at the Real Sociedad Hípica de Valladolid, with almost a hundred people, the winner of the 1988 Tour de France traveled into the past to bring back memories of his beginnings, leaving confessions from time to time.
One of his earliest memories is the one he had with his discoverer, Moncho Moliner, who at first claimed that Perico Delgado would win at least one Tour de France. “I myself doubted whether I could win,” admitted the former cyclist.
The man from Segovia emphasized that he has always been a “climber” and that at that time he “sees other runners better” than himself. Thus, he devoted his career to doing what he “loved, which was, above all, traveling.”
“I didn’t see myself as a Tour winner because what’s more, I saw people with a lot of qualities who were better than me,” he insisted.
The years passed and Perico Delgado moved from the youth category to the professional category, passing through the Reynolds team under the direction of José María Echevarri.
The APDV organizes an informative breakfast with Perico Delgado at the Royal Equestrian Society of Valladolid
“When I was in the army in 1981, they came to recruit me, during the three months of leave that I had and I started running with them,” Delgado looked back and added that he felt “comfortable” and that’s why he stayed.
It was a time when Delgado had “doubts,” while his father “didn’t even think” he could make a living from sport. This is why, in the meantime, she continued her nursing studies in Segovia during her professional debut.
It was 1983 that Delgado remembers as a “sensational year”, doing a good job in the Tour de France and as the year “I exploded”. “I made my transition and in 1985 I started with the desire to win the Vuelta de España and it went very well,” he said.
That year’s La Vuelta finished in his native Segovia, with Robert Millar in the lead and six minutes ahead of Perico Delgado. “I didn’t think I would win the Vuelta at all and my goal was to win the stage,” he said.
However, a series of “very difficult circumstances” eventually arose and the stage proceeded with a series of continuous attacks, with none of them managing to escape.
Now Delgado’s goal seemed to disappear when Pepe Recio managed to escape with a header as the Segovia cyclist was ‘obsessed with winning the stage’.
“I was angry with myself, the possibility of winning the stage no longer existed.” It was then that Perico Delgado remembered the phrase of Ángel Arroyo in which he said “if you can’t go up, you will have to enjoy the descent”.
In one of these ports and in practically blind weather due to fog, Perico started “100 meters from the start of the descent and I started at full speed”.
He had to let himself be guided by the white stripes of the asphalt, without “being able to look back because of the fog because if there was something, I was going to eat it.”
Then, once the fog cleared, he found 50 meters away a Pepe Recio who had escaped kilometers before, trying to launch several attacks without being able to take him away.
Meanwhile, in this personal battle with Pepe Recio for the stage, the absent Robert Millán remained progressively behind. “We both (Millán and Perico) started to relieve ourselves and all of a sudden you see the distance increases,” he explained.
“I didn’t understand what was going on behind it,” Delgado admitted, because headphones didn’t exist at that time. Arriving at the finish line, the cyclist from Segovia still remembers how people told him he was going to win and after four minutes a group of runners also crossed it.
“I said, you see, you shouldn’t trust him, but I saw the group was passing and Robert wasn’t there,” he said. Years later, he was able to speak with Millán himself, who admitted that “no one told him what our times were.”
A first Vuelta a España for Perico Delgado who is starting to shape his current silhouette. Already established in professional cycling, with two national championships in his trophy room, came the 1987 Tour de France, where he finished second.
“My bets did not go well,” he stressed, but it was in 1988, at the arrival of the long-awaited Tour de France, that he managed to win. Then, in 1989, a delay in the Luxembourg time trial and gastroenteritis in 1990 prevented him from winning more.
Precisely, focusing on Luxembourg, Delgado still remembers that that year “he was physically euphoric”, during which “the body-mind engine was working at 100%”. “My big Achilles heel was the time trials. And this start in Luxembourg, I wanted to do well,” he explained.
But that day, a mistake and a conversation with another French runner caused him to start two minutes and 40 seconds late. “I already knew I was going to put everything in place. When I came back, the mess was already made,” he recalls.
He arrived at the start when one of his team’s mechanics told him he should have left by now, to which Perico called him “hurry up”. As he walked up the ramp, he encountered José Miguel Echevarri “a little upset.”
“This fucking delay made me lose all concentration and euphoria, this feeling of God, I felt like an unloved demon and I got angry with myself,” he lamented.
As a result, the Tour de France didn’t go as planned and he had nights where “I couldn’t sleep” and he started “doing everything wrong.” “It was me who didn’t know how to have this point of serenity,” he emphasized.
Meanwhile, young Miguel Indurain began to show his face in cycling, sharing a team with then-star Perico Delgado.
And the 1991 Tour de France arrived, which for Perico Delgado “was a blessing”. “I was the big star of cycling and in 1991, I was doing badly, something was holding me back,” he admitted.
He felt like he “needed to rest more.” That year, Indurain and Perico “shared leadership and I still remember the stage in which he became leader.”
That day, Perico stayed behind and still remembers the first question a reporter asked him at the end: “Are you happy?” “What can I say to this one, I thought. I got a great response: what do you think?”
Then the reporter asked him again if he was not happy that Indurain had become the leader. “For me it was a joy, because otherwise my failure would have been much greater. Miguel’s leadership was a liberation. It was a very good transition,” he noted.
Finally, in 1994, Perico Delgado got off his bike and began his role as a commentator. Convinced by TVE, he first signed for two years, which he then extended “from year to year until he lost count”.
And so on until today. Precisely, Perico experienced almost directly the entire evolution of his sport and recognized that if he were a cyclist today, “he would be unhappy, like almost everyone else”.
“The big change today is diet, nutrition. There are lots of nutritionists who tell you not to eat that. I wanted it now, I would just be another cyclist,” he said. he declared.
A new era which, because of his “attitude”, more “rebellious”, would make him live “worse”. “As a runner, it would be much worse for me to have so many advisors telling you that you are very good and that in the race you are not a winner,” he stressed.
One of the current names that has established itself is Tadej Pogačar. A rider who “is so good” that his legacy almost seems like a “dictatorship”.
Perico argued that his decline would come “more on a mental level” because “when you win so easily and life is so wonderful, detachment happens and you pay attention to other things.”
Meanwhile, the Spanish supporter will have to wait to see a runner “to create an attractive situation for that supporter who is looking for this reference”.
