the stage 13 time trial, over 59.4km.
But he was 52nd here, losing over four
minutes to Contador and a minute to
Aru, and dropping to seventh overall.
In this sense he is a typical Basque
rider: he is to time trialling what Marcel
Kittel is to climbing. (His director at
Astana, Giuseppe Martinelli, said he
only saw him go flat out in one time
trial, at the Tour of the Basque Country,
where he was 31st: “Before, he was
always going like it was a rest day.”)
To finish on the Giro podium after
such a dismal time trial was quite an
achievement; a transformative one.
“After the Giro my head changed,”
Landa says. “I knew I wanted to try and
win something, I want to be a leader, to
have my opportunities. And I saw that
in Astana there wasn’t any place for me
- that’s why I changed team.
“I knew about [Sky’s] interest from the
beginning of the season; when I was ill
they were speaking to my manager. That
was important for me; when you are in a
bad moment and someone is interested in
you, more [interested] than your own team,
it’s something that helps you to make a
decision when you have to make it.”So
Sky have more belief in him than Astana?
“They know what I can do,” he says.
Clearly he was miffed at having to
work for a leader (Aru) he considered
inferior, and he is fiercely ambitious,
motivated not by team goals but
personal targets. This seems to set him
apart from so many other Basque
riders. “Yeah, maybe, maybe,” he says.
“But also, before the Giro I wasn’t as
ambitious as I am now. The Giro
changed me. I saw I could do
something, so I have to try.”
And it will be in the Giro that he will
try – he will lead Sky there but doesn’t
rule out riding the Tour as well, in a
support role for Froome. There’ll be no
repeat, he insists for the benefit of his
new employers, of any Wiggins/
Froome-style shenanigans if, at the
Tour, he feels strong.
But we are getting ahead of
ourselves. Landa, for all his promise, has
had one good season. He has never led
a team at a Grand Tour. The prospect
doesn’t scare him, he says. “I think Sky
is a team that makes this easier. They
are helping me a lot, building a group
around me, with me as leader. I feel a
lot of people behind me and at this
moment I don’t feel any pressure.”
He met his new team-mates at a
get-together in London in October 2015.
“Froome is really normal,” he says.
“He’s not...” he gestures with this hand
to indicate someone bigger, taller. “He’s
like the other riders, and that’s really
important because someone who wins
two Tours can be a bit different.”
He has lots of fellow Basques for
company – four riders, including another
new recruit, Beñat Intxausti, and the
coach Xabier Artetxe, plus Navarran
Xabier Zandio. “It is easier, to speak my
language, but I like teams with lots of
different nationalities, so you can learn
about the others,” he says.
He is looking forward to being with a
team that is stable, without the financial
uncertainty that surrounded Euskaltel in
their final season, or the controversy
around Astana last year, when their
racing licence was in the balance after
positive tests for the Iglinsky brothers in- “It was difficult for riders who
knew nothing, who didn’t have any
responsibility for what had happened,”
Landa says now. “It was something two
riders had done. The others were clean
riders. We knew we had done nothing
wrong. It made us closer, like a family.”
If he doesn’t make his Tour debut
this year, Landa wants to go there one
day to help attract back the legions of
Basque fans who turned the Pyrenees
orange in Euskaltel’s heyday. “I think
we lost some supporters,” he says.
“Not the real cycling fans but the ones
who like going to the Pyrenees with
their family to support the team.”
He was that kind of fan once. “I
started watching cycling on television,
when Mayo was riding. He was a
different rider, he attacked Armstrong,
and I loved how he raced.” Aged 18,
Landa went to watch the 2008 Tour in
the flesh, standing on Hautacam as
Mayo’s erstwhile Saunier Duval
team-mate Leonardo Piepoli won the
stage – only to later test positive.
Landa rolls his eyes on being reminded
of that but says the experience
nevertheless inspired him.
He has been studying the Giro route
and says he likes it, even if he is
slightly disappointed there isn’t a
Zoncolan or Mortirolo. In a sign of how
seriously Sky are taking the Giro and
Landa’s bid to win it, he already has an
idea of who will support him.
The big questions, though, concern
how Landa will adapt to the Sky style
of riding, and how Sky will
accommodate a rider who likes to
attack, who seems more interested in
panache than power meters. Or is this
a false assumption? While it would
have been simply impossible to
imagine Mayo training or racing by
numbers, Landa is open to a different
way of working: “I saw that this is the
way to good results,” he says. “Sky
win the Tour with Wiggins, with
Froome, and other races with different
riders. So you see that it’s the way to
get some good results.
“Maybe I’m a little different,” he
adds. “I’m not looking all the time at
the numbers but I think I need to know
this way of working.”
There’s the pragmatist – right there.
But Landa’s other side emerges later,
when he talks about what he enjoys
about racing. “I want to make people
excited by attacking. Winning is
important, it gives you everything, but it’s
also beautiful making people happy by
attacking. You don’t always have to win.”
Landa is a big favourite for the Giro
but the question is, which Landa can
win it, the pragmatist or the romantic?Culture clash: will
the move to Sky blunt
Landa’s attacking
instincts?March 2016 // 83