Esteban Chaves has had more than his fair share of injuries and illnesses to overcome in his career, but the EF Education-EasyPost racer has always refused to throw in the towel and plays the long game - two of his trademark characteristics as a racer. After a couple of uneven years, in 2024 Chaves is once again looking determinedly ahead for fresh success.
Climbing Port Ainé on Wednesday, you could have forgiven Chaves for getting somewhat nostalgic. After all, the mammoth Pyrenean ascent was where the Colombian took his last WorldTour win in the 2021 Volta a Catalunya when he was the only rider capable of breaking Ineos' stranglehold on the race.
Instead, Chaves told a small group of reporters at the start of stage 4, he's keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the future. And if another team is currently dominating in the Volta a Catalunya on the climbs and in the overall - although Visma-Lease A Bike have also been hoovering up the top spots as well this season - the 34-year-old has enough experience to know how to fight back, too.
"It's very hard, but you have to keep trying with everything you've got, putting people into breaks, getting the right people in there, using your resources," Chaves insisted.
"It's true that you don't have much of a chance, but if you just sit there with your arms followed, the chances are even lower."
"So you have to try to adapt and go on and fight. Cyclists are warriors, and that means weighing up our options and taking different strategies to try to win."
As for where and when those alternative approaches might kick into action, Chaves said that rather than overly planning things, it was a question of seizing opportunities as and when they materialized. He also highlighted the importance of the role set to be taken by the team's sprinter, Marijn van den Berg, and indeed, a few hours later, the Dutchman duly lived up to Chaves' hopes and expectations by winning stage 4.
"After today with Marijn, let's see how we can handle the last three days, this Volta a Catalunya is a really tough race," Chaves commented. "So the important thing is to eat right, drink right and be ready for whatever we can."
As for Chaves himself, the season is going reasonably well, he said, but the main goal was to maintain a degree of regularity in his performances that would allow him to strike out for success wherever possible.
"I'm at ease with myself," Chaves, eighth overall in the Colombia Tour before heading across the Atlantic for the main part of the season, explained at the stage 4 start.
"The Volta is my first race in Europe so I spent a month longer than usual in Colombia and it's always a bit of a shock to come here and start racing in the cold. Each year, that's getting tougher."
"But I'm happy and the big goal is to fight for consistency. For the teams, that's increasingly important, and that's my dream for this year.
Chaves says he doesn't yet know what his racing program will be, beyond taking part in the GP Miguel Indurain and the Itzulia Basque Country in early April. EF Education-EasyPost has had a fair number of riders falling sick and injured, he commented, "So we have had to fill a lot of gaps. After Itzulia, we'll decide."
In the meantime, Chaves is doing anything but looking back too much at his past run of success on climbs like Port Ainé in the Volta a Catalunya, for all that on Wednesday, his victory in 2021 meant he was 'defending champion' on the Pyrenean ascent.
"It's nice to remember stages when you go up a climb where you're won, but it's something that already happened, you have to turn the page and move on."
"Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't, I remember the first time went up Ainé I was in the gruppetto.
"Yesterday [Wednesday] I suffered more, but I think I got 20th all the same. And in other years to come I'll do better again. Either way, the important thing is the reality of the here and now."
