Olivia Baril, more than a pair of legs

The second Vuelta Feminina will start with a 16 km team time trial on Sunday in Valencia. Movistar will be there without its title holder, Annemiek van Vleuten, who retired at the end of last year.

For its national tour, the iconic Spanish team will be able to count on Liane Lippert, who will compete in her first race of the year after treating a stress fracture in her hip. Given the uncertain form of the German champion, Quebecer Olivia Baril, 19^e last year, could inherit the role of designated leader for the general classification of the eight-stage event.

Such a vote of confidence is what the climber from Rouyn-Noranda was looking for last year, but which she did not find at UAE Team ADQ, her former team. After three years in a continental team (second division), she nevertheless realized a dream by joining a WorldTour armada with great resources, which she “certainly” saw reaching the top 3 worldwide in a year or two. After all, the head of the organization was theoretically the same as that of its male counterpart, Tadej Pogačar’s UAE Team Emirates.

Olivia Baril quickly became disillusioned. The ban on male colleagues from addressing their sisters during joint activities was one of the first contradictory signals…

“The runners didn’t talk to us and we found it very strange,” she said last week. Normally you talk to each other between teammates, but they were told they weren’t allowed to talk to us. »

In his experience, the “two entities, feminine and masculine, were completely different.” She never felt comfortable at UAE Team ADQ, even though she counted on the presence of three Italian teammates and a sports director with whom she got along very well in her previous training, Valcar – Travel & Service.

“I really, really didn’t like it,” she insisted. I found it to be very poorly managed. Basically, they were trying to be too organized. They wanted to do everything perfect while doing nothing right. And the basic things really weren’t there. »

She cites the last Vuelta, where four sporting directors succeeded one another from one day to the next, preventing the establishment of a clear tactical and strategic line. She does not blame them or the “super competent” staff members, rather blaming senior management for not giving them any room to maneuver.

“The presidents who manage the team have never ridden a bike in their lives,” she said. They run it like a business, like we’re a pair of legs on a bike. When you don’t have a good race, they don’t understand why. »

“Completely burned out” towards the end of the season, Baril pleaded not to take part in the Tour de l’Ardèche, judging the lack of supervision on the small French roads in this type of second category race to be dangerous. His bosses were said to have been insensitive to his grievances.

“They told me: ah, your mental health is not the team’s problem, it’s yours! And if you’re asked to do something, you have to achieve the team’s goals. You need to stop thinking about your own goals. »

A door opens

The Canadian vice-champion claims to have requested the termination of her two-year contract several times. In vain. In October, however, a door opened. According to rumors reported and commented on in the media, UAE Team ADQ wanted to offer a record sum of 1 million euros to the Dutchwoman Demi Vollering for the 2025 season. (The winner of the last Tour de France is still at the center of numerous conjectures about its future.)

To achieve its goals, UAE would have had to make room in its workforce, which would have benefited Baril, according to its analysis of the situation. His former team gave him 24 hours to cancel his deal without penalty, a period extended to 48 hours at the request of his agent.

Movistar, who had eyed him a year earlier, was immediately interested. The matter was resolved within a day. In January, the Spanish team announced the signing of a three-year agreement with the resident of San Sebastian, in the Basque Country. She claims that her salary conditions are “much better” than with UAE.

Despite her harrowing experience with the Emiratis, Olivia Baril had her share of good performances last year, notching a second victory at the Gran Premio Ciudad de Eibar, a sixth place at the Tour of Scandinavia and a stage success at the Tour de l ‘Ardèche.

With more responsibilities at Movistar, she raised her arms twice during races in Spain at the start of the season. Seventh in the Trofeo Alfredo Binda, an Italian WorldTour, she arrived with the second wave of contenders at the top of the Huy wall at the Flèche wallonne (12^e), in Belgium last week.

Three days later, an illness cut off her legs for the Liège-Bastogne-Liège race, which she finished with a fever and cold. “I went home and spent three days in bed,” she said Thursday. I just came back from my first outing, an hour and a half easy. I feel better and better every day and I will still do the Vuelta. »

By being more than a pair of legs on a bike.