If there is one image that perhaps best sums up the career of Gino Mäder, it could be the moment when he stepped up to receive his final best young rider’s jersey in the 2021 Vuelta a España and, presumably grinning from ear to ear behind his facemask, he playfully made a deep bow to the crowd.
It wasn’t that Mäder, who died on June 16 from the injuries sustained a terrible crash in the Tour de Suisse, was unaware of what he’d just achieved in the Vuelta, given how hard he’d fought for his first Grand Tour classification title. His triumph in the competition came ahead of no less a challenger than Egan Bernal and at the end of a horrendously-tough third week of the Vuelta.
