Police are stepping up security as Spain’s biggest cycling race returns to the Basque region today for the first time since protesters seeking independence blocked the route in 1978. The Vuelta a Espana, or Tour of Spain, is scheduled to cover 213 miles (342 km) in the northern territory over two days from about 3 p.m. today. In an e-mail, a Basque police official confirmed the safety measures, without giving details. The 2,050-mile race ends Sept. 11 in Madrid.
While the area is more tranquil since terror group ETA called a cease-fire in January, there may be symbolic protests by separatists who don’t see the semi-autonomous area as part of Spain, according to Gorka Landaburu, director of magazine Cambio 16 who in 2001 was wounded by a letter bomb sent by the organization. ETA has killed more than 800 people over four decades in its quest for an independent state.
“Things are much calmer and those of us who live with bodyguards are much calmer” since the ceasefire was announced, Landaburu said by telephone from San Sebastian. “I expect there to be jeering but no blockades.”
ETA, whose initials stand for Basque Homeland and Freedom in the Basque language, began its campaign in 1968, when Spain was under Francisco Franco’s military dictatorship. In the years after the transition to democracy following Franco’s death in 1975 as many as 100 politicians, journalists and police were killed a year by ETA, Landaburu said.
Pine-Tree Blockade
On the last day of the 1978 Vuelta, separatists rolled pine-tree logs into the path of riders near Bilbao, forcing organizers to abandon the stage. They also confronted cyclists of all nationalities, shouting abuse, according to Miguel Madariaga, president of Basque cycling team Euskaltel-Euskadi, who witnessed the stage as a fan.
The three-week Vuelta, which began in Benidorm on Aug. 20, is the last of the year’s so-called Grand Tours after the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France. It draws tens of thousands of fans to the roadside to watch riders go by.
All nine riders on the Euskaltel-Euskadi team, among the 22 teams contesting the race, were born or raised in the Basque region, Madariaga said. Aitor Gonzalez was the last Basque to win the race in 2002.
In 2009, the Basque Parliament, governed by a coalition led by Spain’s ruling Socialist party, approved a resolution to invite Madrid-based Vuelta organizer Unipublic S.A. to return to the Basque region. At the time, the government’s sports director Patxi Mutiloa told reporters it was “another grain of sand in this long road to normality.”
National Soccer Team
The coalition also invited Spain’s national soccer team to play a home game in the territory for the first time since 1967. The defending World Cup winner’s squad includes Basque midfielder Xabi Alonso.
The Basque Nationalist Party, which wants independence, doesn’t object to the cycling race passing through the area provided the Socialists don’t use it as “a sign of normalization,” according to a spokesman who declined to be identified in line with party policy. He compared it to the region hosting a stage of the 1992 Tour de France.
A spokeswoman for Basque party Bildu didn’t provide a representative for comment. For Basque cycling fans, the race’s return to the area is more than welcome, according to Madariaga, the Basque team president. Every July, the team draws thousands of fans to the Pyrenees to watch Tour de France stages.
“We have the most devoted cycling fans in Spain and it’s a dream they will be able to stand by the roadside and watch the cyclists go past again,” Madariaga said. “There will be arguments about it but we can’t agree on everything in life.”