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Chaves racing for pink — and a special surprise
- Updated: May 26, 2016
PINEROLO, Italy (VN) — A special prize awaits Esteban Chaves, pending his strong Giro d’Italia showing that will all come to an end on Sunday. And it is not necessarily the race winner’s pink jersey.
Although, if Chaves, 26, can take that from the current race leader Steven Kruijswijk during the Giro’s final two mountain stages through the Alps on Friday and Saturday, rest assured the diminutive Colombian can expect to be flooded with as many gifts and rewards as he will be with plaudits.
But within the ‘family’ that his Orica – GreenEdge team has become, since the Bogota rider started riding for them in 2014, there may be a secret bonus reward from the Australian WorldTour team’s owner, Australian businessman Gerry Ryan.
Ryan, whose funding has pretty much kept the team going since its debut in 2012, has a penchant for unique ways to recognize benchmark achievements. In 2011, Ryan gave Cadel Evans a yellow Cadillac after he became the first Australian to win the Tour de France — not a sponsor’s gesture to Evans, as he then rode for BMC — but as a fellow Australian and backer of Australian cycling.
Asked if such a bonus awaits Chaves, who won stage 14 to Corvara in the Dolomites and was still placed second overall at three minutes to Kruijswijk after Thursday’s stage 18 from Muggio to Pinerolo, Ryan laughed and then replied: “I can’t say. There is something sitting in a shed somewhere, but who knows. I won’t tell you the color of it.” Does the color hinge on his final place? “It certainly does,” said Ryan.
Chaves may not be Australian; but he has certainly become one of the most admired and loved figures within the Orica team. And his success so far — whether he wins the Giro or not — has seen him embraced back in Australia by a growing legion of fans.
Moves are afoot to take Chaves to Australia for the Tour Down Under next year when he will also make his Tour de France debut. The decision is yet to be locked in, but Ryan said, “Esteban wants to go and ride the Tour Down Under. I’m not letting a secret out here, but he wants to come to Australia. And it will probably suit him …
continue reading in source velonews.competitor.com
