Carapaz Crowned King

For all who watched and all who participated, it was a memorable 2024 Tour de France. For the EF Education First–EasyPost squad, it will go down as remarkable. For one rider in particular, it may be the crowning achievement of his career to date – literally.

From the brutal heat of Stage 1 in Tuscany, all the way to the end of Stage 21 in Nice, France, it was as though Richard Carapaz never downshifted. In between, from the saddle of his LAB71 SuperSix EVO, he made history: the first cyclist ever to win the Olympic Road Race gold medal and win a stage of all three Grand Tours, the first Ecuadorian to wear the Tour leader’s yellow jersey (from Pinerolo to Valloire), the first Ecuadorian to win a stage (Stage 17: Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux>Superdévoluy), the first Ecuadorian to wear – and win outright – the Tour’s King of the Mountains red polka dot jersey, and the first Ecuadorian to win the Most Combative award.

But let’s break down those last two a bit more.

The Tour doesn’t only reward the fastest cyclist in the peloton. A subtext to the riders’ overall time is the points that they can earn on the Tour’s many climbs and in its many sprints. At the summits of various climbs, or when crossing the line of certain sprinting sections, a rider can earn up to 50 points for reaching it first. A muscular sprinter or a lithe climber may not have the overall fastest time after three weeks of racing, but with strategically-timed efforts, a strong team around them, and incredible speed, they can prove that they’re the best at what they do.

And what Richard Caparaz does best is defy gravity. Aboard his LAB71 SuperSix EVO, he earned 127 climber’s points over the last three weeks, a significant 25 more than the next-best climber in the rankings this year.

From the moment a rider is ahead in the climber’s points, he gets to wear the famous red polka dot jersey until someone else claims it. In the final stages of the Tour, despite challengers, Richard simply wouldn’t give it up. He wore it from the day he first put it on (Stage 19: Embrun>Isola) to the winner’s circle in Nice.

He wasn’t just leading the peloton up the climbs – he was hauling with him the reputation of Ecuador as a cycling nation, elevating it as no less than what it has become in the last decade: an emergent home of global talent in the sport, including Jhonatan Narváez, Byron Guamá, and Jonathan Caicedo.

“There are not a lot of [Ecuadorians] in the World Tour and I hope this helps cycling so it can grow in my country,” said Carapaz of his achievement being the first Ecuadorian in yellow after Stage 3. Little did he know how well he would do in the coming weeks.

And the icing on the cake is his title as the 2024 Tour de France’s Most Combative rider. Awarded by a jury administered by the Tour, the honor goes to the rider deemed the most aggressive in the race overall – spending the most time in the breakaways at the front of the peloton, for which quantification is difficult, but recognition is enormous, both from cycling fans and Richard’s competitors alike. The award states clearly: “This guy was relentless.”

And yet, two weeks before the Tour began, relenting seemed inevitable. Richard had crashed out of the Tour de Suisse, and had fallen severely ill shortly after. The rest of his season looked doubtful – something that he and the entire EF Education–EasyPost team lamented, after a horrible crash ended his 2023 Tour de France on its first day. As his wheels had been swept away, so was the most important event of his season. Was 2024 going to be the same?

No. So far, it’s arguably been Richard’s best ever, which is saying a lot for a résumé as stacked as his. It was an epic Tour for EF Pro Cycling, too, who’ve seen Richard’s relentlessness pay off through flurries of struggles. A jersey in Le Tour was never fully out of reach, but never fully realized, either. That changed this year.

Sometimes called “The Jaguar of Tulcán,” Richard Caparaz has now, finally, earned his spots.