Three Slovak riders could not line up in Montreal. Without a starter, the federation risked seeing its national championships downgraded by the UCI and missing out on future major international events. So it sent out its masseur, Vladimir Kovacik, a former rider with the continental team Dukla Banska Bystrica.
The race covered 270 kilometres. Kovacik hung on to the peloton until the entry to the final circuit, around 160 kilometres from the finish. Brandon McNulty won.
“It’s completely mad. I don’t have the words to describe what I’m feeling,” Kovacik said, quoted by DH. And also: “I trained a little, but only as an amateur. It’s been nine years since I last rode a professional race.”
What occupies me is the evening before. Usually he’s the one going round the rooms with the oil and the towels, preparing the musettes, knowing who wants the sweet bidon and who wants still water. And there he is, on the other side of the table, with no one to do his job for him, because his job is him. So who filled his bidons that morning? I don’t know, DH doesn’t say. Where I come from, the masseur was someone you saw at the hotel and in the feed zone, never with a number on his back. He started with the others, and he held on with the others as far as the circuit. At the front, I couldn’t tell you. At the back, I can tell you that’s a proper day of de koers, the race, as they say in Flanders. A bidon has to be earned, and he earned his. I hope someone handed it to him at the right height.
It’s true, we checked: DH Les Sports+.
