There are days that cycling does not forget. May 23, 2011 was forever stuck in the memory of the Spanish platoon. Xavi Tondo He died in Sierra Nevada at just 32 years old, when he was about to go out to train and prepare for the Tour de France that was to definitively change his career. Fate awaited him in the garage of the apartment he shared with Beñat Intxausti. A domestic accident, absurd, impossible to imagine, ended the life of one of the most beloved riders in the peloton.
Everything happened shortly after ten in the morning. Tondo was going to take the car out of the garage in Pradollano. According to investigations, he saw the door falling on him and got out of the vehicle to try to operate it. The car ended up moving and trapped him against the gate. Intxausti, sitting in the passenger seat, tried to help him and called the emergency services, but he could no longer save him. The impact shook Spanish cycling and left the Movistar team in shock, then concentrated between the Giro and the preparation of the Tour.
Tondo’s death hit even more because of the timing. The Catalan was going through the best year of his sporting life. He had signed for Movistar after growing up far from the spotlight, surviving in modest teams and making a living even in Portugal to continue pursuing the dream of being a cyclist. He won the Vuelta a Portugal, shone in Paris-Nice and the 2010 Volta a Catalunya and finished sixth in LaVuelta after breaking his collarbone just a month before. His progression did not stop.
In 2011 he had already won a stage in the Tour de San Luis and the overall victory in the Vuelta a Castilla y León. Eusebio Unzué’s team saw him ready to take honors in the Tour. “My trajectory has always been upward, every year I go up a step,” he said during that season. I had the illusion intact. Also the respect of the platoon.
Because Tondo not only stood out on the bicycle. He was a cyclist loved for his way of understanding the sport. A firm defender of fair play, he actively collaborated in denouncing a doping network in Catalonia months before his death. His teammates always talked about his contagious enthusiasm, his permanent smile and his way of living cycling as an absolute passion.
The blow was devastating. Alberto Contador wrote then: “He was an incredible person who loved this sport like no one else.” Igor Antón left another phrase that still resonates in the peloton: “I have not seen anyone with such enthusiasm to be a cyclist.” In the Giro that year, Movistar decided to continue competing to honor him. Days later, Vasili Kiryienka raised his arms at one stage and pointed to the sky.
The memory that never leaves
Fifteen years later, the name of The man from Valls worked in a cereal factory before establishing himself as a professional. I saved in winter to run in summer. He never stopped fighting. He never lost his enthusiasm. On his helmet he had the symbol of infinity. As if he wanted to remind himself every day that there was still a road ahead.