El primer Campeón Book

Brief synopsis of the Book The First Champion: In the 20s and 30s of the last century, cycling was a building with its skeleton exposed. Only the Tour de France and some classics offered some perspective; the Giro was young, the Vuelta did not exist and the world championship was just born. In Spain things were more precarious. Only the Volta a Catalunya offered pulse and tradition, the rest was to be done.

There were domestic stars, but few, very localized and rarely documented. It was in 1925 when a young Navarrese broke into the Catalan races to twist history. For many reasons, Mariano Cañardo was the pioneer, the first Spanish cycling champion. Your records are still valid. He was the first entirely professional Hispanic cyclist, endowed with a method and wisdom that did not exist in his time. His talent was appreciated beyond the Pyrenees.

Everything happened in times marked by political, social and economic instability. He was always surrounded by tragic circumstances. The hardship of the First World War took him out of his native Olite; he experienced first-hand the 20 accidents in a Barcelona that was a hive of sensitivities; the Civil War forced him to remain in France, and the Second World War did not give him the option of projecting the experience he had accumulated. A life at a thousand an hour, dusty, long-suffering and Blaugrana, as only the heroes of that time could star.