'I was surprised as well' - Movistar general manager Eusebio Unzué analyses Enric Mas' unexpected but welcome victory in Vuelta a España

The barricades from the Vuelta a España's final stage have been cleared away in Granada now, and the water in the fountain in the Paseo del Salón boulevard where the final victory celebrations took place is no longer tinged with red dye to reflect the colour of the Vuelta leader's jersey.

But the consequences of a race won by Enric Mas in the least expected circumstances - following a crash-out by Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) - has brought a fresh Grand Tour triumph to Movistar, and will take much longer to be fully absorbed.

The 2026 Vuelta is the fifth in the history of the team co-created by Eusebio Unzué back in 1980, and its first since 2016 with Nairo Quintana. It's also Spain's first victory in its home race since 2014. Enric Mas made the podium four times, but never the top place until now.

That all changed on Sunday, when Mas, who had suffered thrombophlebitis a year ago in July and endured a miserable debut in the 2026 Giro d'Italia, was able to turn the tables on his season and his entire career by claiming his first-ever Grand Tour.

All this at 31, too. After inheriting the jersey from Pogačar on stage 8, and winning on the Alto de Aitana on stage 9, he continued outgunning or equalling his rivals on every summit finish that followed, keeping the opposition at a safe distance when riding the time trial of his life on stage 18.

The triumph for Movistar represents a massive boost for Mas, the Movistar team and Spanish cycling. As Unzué, the sport's longstanding team manager, told Cyclingnews, the full consequences will take quite a while to sink in.

Cyclingnews (CN): Given the strength of the lineup in Monaco, when this year's Vuelta a España began on August 22, did you feel it would be very complicated to try and win it?

Eusebio Unzué (EU): No doubt about it. Anywhere where our friend Pogačar is racing, in the best of cases, a second place is what's possible. But at the same time, bad luck causes things to happen to us.

It's also true that on the stage to Castelló, [where Mas caught Pogačar at the top of the main climb and they reached the finish together], that's where he showed us the first sign that he was in really great shape. Then the bad luck Tadej suffered meant Enric was converted into the overall leader, and from that day onwards, he knew how to keep the jersey all the way to here.

CN: And the fact that Mas had such a tough time in the Giro and then kicked off again from scratch, how much did that help him?

EU: We're never going to know how much that did, but we do know that after what happened to him in the 2025 Tour, he was almost four or five months without riding the bike. He had to start all over again this season, he went to the Giro and he was feeling great when he started, he was very optimistic. But probably his underlying physical condition was not in the right place where he wanted it to be, and he wasn't able to do the Giro how he wanted or expected.

But he kept on training, and then you all saw that in Burgos he was already going well, and then here he was faultless. He followed the same progress curve as in other years, too, where the Vuelta and the months of August and September were his best months and then the end of the season, which is where he has his best results.

That's what we're focused on now, and we don't know how the operation that he had because of the thrombophlebitis last year has helped him, too, in the long term. The important thing is that he feels very good and I think this series of results is helping him feel more and more confident and this is the final consequence. That's also come thanks to the team, who, despite the absence of Cian [Uijtdebroeks abandoned on stage 3 - Ed.] has done a great Vuelta.

CN: Quite a few people have been surprised that Enric has been able to handle the pressure of being the race leader, because we're talking about somebody who has had some issues with questions like descending and so on. Were you surprised as well?

EU: Yes. I was surprised as well. He was a rider who had a really promising start to his career and, when he was very young, even making second in the 2018 Vuelta, and the expectations that surrounded him were very high. He, too, was convinced that he could handle them, but in fact, he never could.

I don't know that calendar we had for him of Tour-Vuelta-Tour-Vuelta-Tour-Vuelta etc. was … sometimes the Tour is really positive for a rider and sometimes it's a real burden of responsibility which some riders have problems overcoming and sometimes they never do. And he started to feel uncomfortable with that.

But it's also true that he's a rider with a great future ahead of him, at least two or three years and above all, I think this Vuelta and the way he's raced through it will help consolidate his feelings of self-confidence.

Old Rock'n'Rollers Never Die

CN: Was stage 20 maybe the most complicated of all to handle, with those early attacks that led to crosswinds, your support riders ahead of the GC group in breaks and Enric isolated in the main group for a large part of the toughest day of the race?

EU: Rather than being alone on the stage, we had riders ahead of him which we could use in the race when we thought it was necessary. He was alone for a while, but as I say, the directors played their cards very well strategically and when he needed riders, the team had them ready. And in that sense, I'm very, very satisfied with how teammates of his, who'd never had a chance to fight for a leader's jersey in a Grand Tour, rose to the occasion.

CN: What does this mean for a team and a country with a huge tradition in Grand Tours but which has struggled to get to the very top in the last few years. Is it a timely reminder that, as the Spanish song puts it, los viejos rockeros nunca mueren - old rock'n'rollers never die?

EU: Exactly. As you know very well, we're a team that has always had the concept of grandes corredores para las grandes vueltas - top-name riders for the biggest Tours - as one of our trademarks. That's been our reference point, ever since we started in 1980 but what has happened in the last few years, three riders - Roglič, Vingegaard and Pogačar - have won almost everything in the last six years. There's been virtually no space for anybody else. There've been a few isolated exceptions, but that's been it.

What's happened is that with the internationalisation of cycling, we've got top-name riders from all over the world. But now we're benefiting from that expansion too, as a sport that's getting more and more popular across the globe. But I always think that the countries that have always been the cycling heartlands in Europe - Belgium, Spain, Italy and France - are always going to have top-name riders for Grand Tours, too.

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