This is not meant to be happening. Kern Pharma were not supposed to win even one stage of the Vuelta a España, but then we were introduced to Pablo Castrillo. A second was remarkable, but a third? Nah, get outta here. ¿En serio? This can’t be happening. They have no famous riders. No one except family asks them for selfies or autographs. No one crowds outside their bus. No one gives them as much as a gentle clap at sign on. The UCI have even introduced a ruling which will make it much harder for teams like Kern Pharma to be even present in these races from 2026. But here they are. Winning. And winning again.
Wins one and two came from Castrillo, Spain’s new idol and every WorldTour team’s new number one target, and win three – yeah, a third one – came from Urko Berrade. No, we hadn’t heard of him before this race, either. In fact, like Castrillo before him, he’d never won a professional bike race. He hadn’t even come that close. Yet this Vuelta is Kern’s Vuelta.
The team who'd only won eight times in five years prior to this race fielded three riders in the large break on stage 18, and when it was reduced to 12 after the final categorised climb, Kern’s trio of cards were all still on the table. No other team, not even the WorldTour bigwigs, had more than one. They were outsmarting, outfoxing, outmanoeuvring teams who have individual riders on more money than their squad's collective annual budget of just a few million euros. When Steven Kruijswijk attacked with 6.5km to go, Berrade joined the veteran Dutchman, and then counterattacked him, powering away with the same athleticism and unrestrained speed as we now know Castrillo has. Behind, Pau Miquel closed down Mauro Schmid’s attack. Then Aleksandr Vlasov. Then Oier Lazkano. One, two, three fires put out by fireman Miquel who finished third come the end. It was a demonstration of teamwork that would have TED talkers gushing.
The team’s manager, Juanjo Oroz, had his head in his hands. “I don’t believe it,” he said. “I couldn’t have dreamt this”. Berrade similarly couldn’t find the words. “Without a doubt we’re dreaming,” he said. ¿Qué has hecho? He was asked - what have you done? “I don’t know what to say,” he laughed. “I still don’t believe it.” Nor do we. Nor does anyone.
Only four teams have won more Grand Tour stages than Kern Pharma have this season – and they’ve all had an additional 42 stages to make the difference. In just eight days, the second-tier Spanish team operating on a yearly budget of €4 million, otherwise known as one Remco Evenepoel, have won more stages in 2024’s three-week racing than Ineos Grenadiers have with two, a team with a wallet 13 times bigger. Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe claim that they have wings that make them fly but have only won two stages across the Giro, Tour, and Vuelta, while Lidl-Trek have only sourced two stage wins from their own supermarket's middle aisle. Bahrain, self-titled Victorious, have won zero Grand Tour stages this year. Ditto Groupama-FDJ. Movistar, Spain's team, have won two Vuelta stages since 2020. Little Kern have won three in seven stages. Three!
This is the pet project of Manolo Azcona, a businessman passionate about cycling who created a development team in 1993 when development teams weren't even a thing, expanding into the professional team that it is today in 2020. A week ago, Azcona passed away. His death hit Spanish cycling hard. Tributes poured in, former alumni wept, crying emojis accompanied social media posts, and black armbands were worn. How sad he is missing his team’s greatest moments, days that not even he forecasted would happen, but his equipo, his little green band of aspirational young men on a jolly and unfathomably victorious lap of their home country, are paying him the ultimate homage. Vaya espectáculo.
