'A special guy who does it his own way' - Patrick Lefevere pays tribute to Mikel Landa after Basque breaks his back in Giro d'Italia crash

Messages of support and tributes have been pouring in for Mikel Landa after the Basque broke his back in a horror crash on stage 1 of the Giro d'Italia. 

Former Soudal-QuickStep boss, Patrick Lefevere used his weekly column in Nieuwsblad to explain why the 35-year-old has come to form such an important part of the team.

Landa had started the Giro d'Italia in a bid to repeat his podium finishes of 2021 and 2015, but suffered a high-speed crash late on stage 1. Both he and former Giro mountains classification winner Geoffrey Bouchard (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale) were badly injured and had to quit the Corsa Rosa.

Landa fractured the TLL vertebra in his lower back, his team said, while on Saturday morning Decathlon revealed that Bouchard had fractured both his collarbone and multiple fractures in his back.

When Landa signed with Soudal-QuickStep in 2024, it was an unexpected move. But he quickly settled in well in his dual role of mountains domestique de luxe for Remco Evenepoel and GC contender in other Grand Tours where the Belgian was not racing. He has recently re-signed for another season until the end of 2026. 

Fifth overall in last year's Tour de France, Landa was hoping for more success in this year's Giro. Instead the injuries of his high-speed downhill crash have wrecked his latest Grand Tour ambitions. Landa's crash is a potentially a significant setback for Evenepoel's support squad at the Tour de France, as he is likely to need four weeks of complete rest and so may well be unable to be part of the Soudal-QuickStep Tour de France squad. 

As Lefevere wrote in Nieuwsblad,all of that speculation took second place behind concern for Landa's wellbeing.

“I am not the most sensitive person on earth, but my heart bleeds when I see Mikel Landa hit the ground so hard," Lefevere, who retired as team CEO earlier this year, wrote.

"Gone is the number one leader and leader for our team, but that is the least of my worries. When I saw Mikel in the ambulance, I thought of him and not of the race."

Carried away in a stretcher, Lefevere said that a rapid diagnosis had shown Landa had a broken back and would face at least one day in hospital and a month of complete rest.

"Cycling must be about the only sport in the world where we say: 'It's not that bad'.

Lefevere said that rather than being a closed, introverted person, as he had thought before meeting him, Landa was an openhearted individual whose huge experience and considerable command of the English language - as well as Italian, Basque, French and Spanish -  enabled him to become a figure of unspoken authority within the team. 

Rather than being an isolated figure, "Mikel has always been the opposite of an island within the team," Lefevere revealed.

"He talks to everyone and gets along with everyone. From Remco Evenepoel to Junior Lecerf. I don't think there are many riders in the team who can say they haven't learned anything from Mikel. If that's the case, it's their fault, not his."

'A glass of whisky, not a bottle'

A pro since 2010, Landa has famously suffered from considerable bad luck in races, with MARCA's Saturday morning issue solemnly carrying the full long list of accidents and misfortunes he has experienced in the past along with a photomontage of the worst incidents.

These included two big crashes in the Giro d'Italia, leaving the race in the first week in 2021 after a major fall, and losing 27 minutes when he and other riders collided with a police motorbike at the foot of the Blockhaus in 2017. 

The year before, Landa had had to quit the Giro unexpectedly with gastroenteritis, just when he was in serious contention for the overall victory.

Lefevere, though, preferred to refer to Landa's cult status in Spain, where the Basque is one of cycling's most popular figures and 'Landismo' - a kind of love for Landa's ability to overcome the odds - is a well-known phrase amongst fans.

"I have never really understood what the term 'Landismo' stands for but in every newspaper article about him it is mentioned at every opportunity. There are many people who have now lost their favourite rider in the Giro," Lefevere wrote in Nieuwsblad.

"Mikel is a special guy who does it his way. A good professional but sometimes with a cigar or a whisky. On the Lefevere Scale, points are added instead of taken away for that, as long as it is a glass and not a bottle. And with Landa it is never a bottle."

Lefevere concluded that while the Basque was a good GC contender, he was an exceptional domestique de luxe and had never really needed the 'FreeLanda' movement. This was a shortlived social media campaign by his most diehard fans in 2018 to try and ensure Landa enjoyed the maximum freedom of manoeuvre as a GC racer in Movistar after apparently doing too many domestique duties at Astana and Sky. 'That was nonsense,' Lefevere wrote, slightly huffily.

"He excels in that role [of domestique], much more than when he carries the pressure of being a leader. Of course it is very doubtful at the moment that he will make it to the Tour team around Remco, but honestly, the only thing that matters now is: mejorate pronto, amigo .” [Get well soon.]"