Carapaz was born in El Carmelo, Tulcán Canton. Whilst at school, he was mentored by one of his teachers, former Olympic racing cyclist Juan Carlos Rosero, who started a cycling club at the school. The club has also produced a number of other professional riders, including Jhonatan Narváez and Jonathan Caicedo.[10] Prior to taking up cycling, Carapaz competed for his school as a runner.[11]
Career
Movistar Team (2016–2019)
2016
Carapaz began his career with amateur teams in Ecuador, Colombia and Spain. On 28 July 2016, he joined Movistar Team from Lizarte as a trainee for the remainder of the 2016 season.[12][13] He signed as a professional rider ahead of the 2017 season.[14]
His first professional victories came in 2018, with a stage and the overall in the Vuelta a Asturias.[18] He won stage 8 of the Giro d'Italia, becoming the first Ecuadorian cyclist to win a Grand Tour stage.[19] He finished in the top ten in five other stages of that race, and finished fourth in the general classification. He also completed the 2018 Vuelta a España in 18th place.[20]
Carapaz again won the Vuelta a Asturias in 2019,[21] and went on to win the 2019 Giro d'Italia. After multiple crashes late in stage 4 saw several riders go down and a select group break off on the front, Carapaz made an attack in the final kilometre to take the stage win.[22] On Stage 13, Carapaz attacked and got clear of the two favourites for overall victory, Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain–Merida) and Primož Roglič (Team Jumbo–Visma). This placed him among the other favourites, two minutes down on Roglič.[23] On stage 14, Carapaz again attacked and won the stage by almost two minutes, taking the general classification lead.[24] Carapaz successfully defended his lead for the rest of the race to take the overall victory. Carapaz became the first Ecuadorian rider to win a Grand Tour and the second South American rider to win the Giro, after Colombian Nairo Quintana in 2014.[25]
Carapaz joined Team Ineos at the beginning of the 2020 season on a three-year deal.[26] His first win for the team came on 7 August, on the third stage of the Tour de Pologne: on the uphill drag to the finish, Carapaz made an attack in the final kilometre and held off the peloton.[27] In the Tour de France, he came second in both stages 16 and 18. On the latter stage, he finished alongside teammate Michał Kwiatkowski, who won the stage, while Carapaz took the lead in the mountains classification from Tadej Pogačar.[28] However, two days later, Pogačar retook the lead, and also won the stage and moved into the overall race lead; Carapaz ultimately finished second in the mountains classification.[29]
In the Vuelta a España, Carapaz was once again a challenger for overall victory and traded places with defending champion Primož Roglič several times for the race lead. He first took the red jersey of the race leader on stage 6 from Roglič.[30] On stage 10, Carapaz relinquished it back to Roglič, who won the day's stage, though the two were tied on time and had to be differentiated by tiebreakers.[31] Carapaz regained the race lead briefly after stage 12,[32] but lost it for good to Roglič after the thirteenth stage.[33] On the mountainous penultimate stage, with Roglič, Carapaz, and Hugh Carthy locked in a three-way battle for the overall victory, Carapaz attacked but only managed to take 15 seconds on Carthy and 21 seconds on Roglič. In doing so, he secured a second place overall finish.[34]
2021
Carapaz took his first victory of the 2021 season on 10 June, winning the mountainous fifth stage of the Tour de Suisse.[35] In so doing, he took the general classification lead, which he defended over the remaining five stages to take the overall win by 17 seconds ahead of Rigoberto Urán.[36]
Carapaz was named to the Ineos Grenadiers's Tour de France squad as one of four possible contenders for the general classification alongside Tao Geoghegan Hart, Richie Porte, and Tour winner Geraint Thomas.[37][38] After the other three riders were involved in crashes and lost time in the first week, Carapaz emerged as the sole leader.[39] He would eventually finish third overall.[40]
Carapaz won the Olympic road race, finishing over a minute clear of the rest of the field. He initially followed an attack by Brandon McNulty with 25 kilometres (16 mi) to go, but with 5.8 kilometres (3.6 mi) left, he pulled away from McNulty and rode across the finish line solo.[41][42][43]
Carapaz began the 2022 season at the Étoile de Bessèges in early February, in which he crashed during stage 3 and abandoned prior to the last stage, having already lost over nine minutes to eventual winner Benjamin Thomas.[44] His bad luck continued at the Tour de la Provence about a week later, from which he was forced to withdraw after testing positive for COVID-19 despite showing no symptoms.[45] However, Carapaz took his first win of the season later that month at the Ecuadorian National Time Trial Championships, which was also his first national title at the elite level.[46] His next important success came during stage 6 of the 2022 Volta a Catalunya when he went on a long-distance attack with Sergio Higuita. The pair stayed away for over 100 kilometers and raced all the way to the line with Carapaz taking the stage win and moving into 2nd on GC.[47]
On 19 August 2022 it was announced Carapaz would join EF Education–EasyPost from the 2023 season on a three-year contract.[48][49]
2024
Despite a crash during the 2024 Tour de Suisse and subsequent illness,[50] Carapaz entered the 2024 Tour de France with EF Education-EasyPost, aiming for stage wins.[51] He took the yellow jersey after Stage 3, becoming the first Ecuadorian rider to do so,[52] before losing it to Tadej Pogačar after Stage 4.[53] He went on to win Stage 17 in a solo finish,[54][55] crossing the finish line more than 7 minutes before Pogačar (27th place),[56] who still held the jersey at the time. By winning this stage, he became the first Ecuadorian to win a Tour de France stage, and the first to win a stage at each of the Grand Tours.[57] Carapaz took the polka–dot jersey from Pogačar after Stage 19,[58] and by the end of Stage 20 he had secured a large enough lead in the KoM category for a win to be inevitable. This made Carapaz the first Ecuadorian to win the classification.[59]
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