Prior to the start of the Tour de France, the Wieler Revue portal conducted an extensive interview with Landa. However, despite the expectations, Landa failed to stand out during the last Tour de France, finishing in nineteenth place. His performance did not reach the highest level he had experienced before.
The Basque rider has finished in the top ten seven times in his career in a Grand Tour. In 2015 and 2022, he stood on the lowest step of the Giro d’Italia podium, while he finished in fourth place in the 2017 Tour de France as a domestique for Chris Froome.
“I felt stronger during the 2015 Giro d’Italia, the 2017 Tour de France, and the 2019 Giro d’Italia, but I was a domestique in all those competitions. I’m 33 years old now, but I’m certainly not done with cycling. I’m still at least as good as I was in the past. In fact, purely in terms of power, I’m better than I was in the 2017 Tour de France. It’s just that the overall level has also improved considerably.”
Landa was born and raised in Murgia, a small village northeast of Vitoria Gasteiz and about fifty kilometers south of the capital, Bilbao. There aren’t many cyclists in the Landa family. “No, I don’t come from a big family of cyclists. My uncle used to ride a bike for leisure, but he stopped when he was thirty. Nowadays, my brother also rides a bike, but only as a bike tourist.”
“Until my fourth professional year, I didn’t think about the life of a professional cyclist. I was still a student during the first three years of my career. I studied Architecture at the university, but at a certain point, it was impossible to continue juggling it with cycling. I started getting better results on the bike, and so it wasn’t a difficult decision to choose cycling,” concluded the Basque rider, who will be present in the upcoming Vuelta a España as the leader of Bahrain Victorious.