For most professional riders, winning the National Championships road race at the age of 39 for a fifth time in your career and fourth time in a row would be ample reason to consider the season a success. But for Mavi García, claiming the red and yellow of Spanish National Champion last summer was the only highpoint in a year where precious little else went right.
It was a year that Garcia realised that elite athletes are humans too.
"In 2023 I was never really been at my top level. It's partly due to a series of circumstances and misfortunes, but also to the fact that we're people, not machines," the Liv AIuIa Jayco rider told Cyclingnews last December at the Queens of the Alhambra criterium in Granada, Spain.
"After three years of going really well, you can’t always be right up there at the top.
"Last year I may have made some small mistakes, but I had a lot of bad luck, too, and whenever I was racing I had a strange feeling. This year, I want to get rid of that feeling."
Garcia will begin her 2024 season at this week's UAE Tour Women stage race.
Yet if bouncing back at 40 - her birthday is on January 2nd - in professional cycling sounds like a daunting task, García is one of the few racers who could probably do it.
She's always had a knack of making the most of paths less travelled. Her success rate after turning pro eight years ago, aged 31 being the standout case in point. From that most unlikely of beginnings, García moved all the way up the ladder to become Spain's top women's racer.
Such has been her dominance of the Nationals, in particular, with a staggering nine elite titles to her name, that anything but a repeat win in either category is now considered a a surprise .
As García tells Cyclingnews, she herself has been a little guilty of taking her relentless superiority in the Nationals for granted.
"This year, the time trial didn't work out well for various reasons and it seems like it was a disaster when it shouldn't be seen like that, that's not reasonable."
"But even I am getting overly accustomed to doing it [winning the Nationals] and that's not good. You have to take things year by year, because each race is a world in itself where you can always win or lose, and winning the Nationals so many times in a row is actually very hard."
Bouncing back
If García is looking for the best way to bounce back from an uneven year, then the merger between her former squad Liv Racing TeqFind and AIUIa Jayco at the end of 2023 is surely a great starting point. Even more so, she was the first rider from Liv Racing to be asked to join the refounded team.
"It's another step in my career and I'm hoping it's a good one," García says.
"I'm pleased it's a two-year contract because sometimes with a shorter one, it's difficult, because you need time to learn how to fit in and get on with all the different people. Plus there are all the questions of familiarising yourself with new equipment, new kit and so on."
"But I'm lucky enough that in this case, almost all that side of things will be the same, and that meant it was easier for me to stay on here with a team where I knew I'd have the same bikes, shoes and so on. When you change everything, sometimes it gets complicated."
She was fortunate, too, she says, because "Not all the women who were in Liv Racing have moved across. Liv has been remodelled as a Devo' team, and I think only four [finally five - Ed.] of us former Liv riders have joined the Jayco-AIUIa team. Not many."
"I had another year's contract with Liv and I could have gone elsewhere, I had other offers. But I think this choice was a good thing for me."
Her 2024 role, she says, will be a similar one to her previous team, leading for "some GCs and some of the Classics."
While keen to perform well at the Giro and the Tour, in particular, she singles out Flèche Wallonne "because there have been so many years when I've been close to the podium. I've run fifth, fifth and fourth, so now it's time to get on the podium, at the least."
The World's, too, is another race where she has a strong sense of unfinished business, particularly after 2023 when some of the bad luck she experienced all season kicked in with a vengeance.
"Just when I was feeling the best I had all season, I got caught up in a crash and spent the whole race playing catchup," she recounts. "But I still got tenth, I think without that fall I would have been up there, done a really good Worlds."
Sadly it summed up her entire year, she says, in that "There's always been a bit of bad luck, plus certain circumstances, and when it doesn't work out, it just doesn't work out."
She also has unfinished business with the Tour de France, where last year García was unlucky enough to fall sick on the second last day, forcing her to abandon.
"On the Tourmalet stage, I felt really bad, I had cramps and was throwing up, I had a fever and I couldn't eat anything after the race. As I woke up on the last day feeling terrible and I still had nothing to gain by riding, I decided not to go for it." This year, then, it'd only be logical if she wanted to set the record straight there as well.
Tackling the SDWorx-Protime steamroller
Partly as a way of reducing the likelihood of a repetition of the misfortunes of 2023, this season García has decided to opt for a generally high level of form across the year, rather than aiming to peak at any given moment.
"That way I'll be more competitive throughout and have more opportunities to be up there in important races and in the ones I like," she says.
"I'm guessing riders looking to target the Tour will miss out on some other races, say, but each to her own. Me, I want to be up there as often as I can and try and grab everything I can."
The absence of now-retired Dutch superstar Annemiek van Vleuten could well have a major impact on racing in 2024, although Dutch super-team SDWorx-Protime will likely be aiming to dominate just as much as they did in 2023. As García puts it, "They [SDWorx-Protime] have at least five riders who can win easily. It'd be nice that the [top SDWorx-Protime] riders were more distributed in different teams, so there'd be a bit more of a competition."
However, she says, rather than overthink things regarding her rivals, her main goal is self-improvement, and "I just concentrate on what I do."
The home front - and two more years
While the precise effects of Van Vleuten's absence and the power vacuum it has created remain to be seen, professional cycling is also in a state of major flux at home in Spain. Races like La Vuelta a España Femenina, extended into a full week for the first time last year are hugely positive steps, and this January García was able to take part in three brand new races at the Challenge Mallorca, her home region.
Visibly delighted at the chance to be taking part in events on roads she knows like the back of her hand, García said, "To give you an idea of how much it's mattered to me, I did one training camp, went home briefly and then will going out to another training camp so I know I'll be in shape for them!"
On the other hand, she points to the financial difficulties some smaller, lower-budget local teams may face in Spain as costs rise, and she is concerned, too, at the lack of young riders coming through in Spain right now.
Given the way that, as she says, "the smaller teams that could have worked for the younger professionals are at risk of disappearing because the [financial] demands are much greater now. Sometimes when things progress too fast, then the effects on things can vary a lot."
As for the chance of new top names coming through in Spain, turning professional and taking on the established order - ie García - she is optimistic, but only cautiously so. "There are some very promising and talented riders amongst the U23 and Juniors, but it's always a bit unpredictable because you can be great at that level and then it doesn't work out for you in the elite levels."
"At the moment though, there aren't any young [pro] riders really laying down the law here, and hopefully that'll change because it's a pity."
"It's true that Ane Sanesteban (Laboral Kutxa - Fundación Euskadi) and I are still going strong on the international front, but I think maybe she'll retire at around the same time as me or perhaps a bit later. So let's hope somebody is coming through soon."
At the oppositive end of the spectrum, the odds of García bowing out are increasing high, and although not wholly decided, the Spanish veteran says that she feels the end of the line could well be at the end of 2025
"Right now, I'm thinking of doing these two years and then stopping," she says. "I had thought of one more season, but with the team merger, they wanted me to go for two. I wasn't totally sure which I wanted, so I finally agreed to go for that."
Yet whatever the future holds, her goals remain firmly in place for this year too, and given García's naturally optimistic, upbeat stance, there's no sense she is close to drawing a line under her career any time soon.
Apart from Flèche Wallonne and the Worlds, this year García has another special goal, given "The Games in Tokyo left me with a feeling of unfinished business, too, I could have gone better. They're maybe not really suitable for me in terms of the road race route, but then, I didn't think the Worlds this year [2023] were ideal and I did really well under the circumstances.
"It's a very different kind of racing at the Games and Worlds, with no earpieces, and it all depends on how you race it yourself. So you have to push yourself really hard to try and hit the jackpot, but I enjoy it a lot."
"So far at the Worlds, though, I could never get what I really wanted. So this time round, I want to get in the top five."
So retirement may be looming on the distant horizon, but it's clear that García is determined to keep fighting all the way to her own finish line. And while there's every chance that this summer she'll be in the battle for a tenth National Champion's title, the likelihood of García having far more to celebrate than she did in 2023 is surely just as high, too.
