11 Sep 2024

Volta a Galicia will bring down the curtain to the season

From 12th to 15ht of September

Volta Ciclista a Galicia

The Volta Ciclista a Galicia will be a very important race for the team. After 10 years competing in the best races and training great cyclists, the under-23 squad of the Alberto Contador Foundation will bring down the curtain as already announced during the month of August. The Volta a Galicia from Thursday to Sunday will be the last race of the season and with it the last race of the amateur team.

The team will travel to Galicia with the same team that competed in the recent Vuelta a Salamanca. Pablo García and Antonio González demonstrated their good form finishing seventh and tenth respectively in the overall classification. In addition, Gabriele Bessega will join the team to complete the squad also composed by Martín Barrero, Álex García, Manuel Sanroma and Daniel Tenorio.

The Volta a Galicia will have four stages from Thursday to Sunday and will start with a short but explosive time trial, which will also finish uphill. The second stage, again in Sarria, will feature the first mountain passes of the race in a day of almost 160 kilometers. The clim of Montan (3rd) on a final circuit to which the riders will have to complete two laps will select the bunch. The third stage will start and finish in Xinzo de Lima and a medium mountain terrain will demand the maximum from the riders for 160 kilometers. As on the previous day, the stage will end with two laps of a circuit with a climb for each one. The fourth and final stage will be 127 kilometers long and will decide the race. The ascent to Monte Castrove (2nd) in the last 30 kilometers of the stage could be decisive for the race.

Rafael Díaz Justo will lead the team in Galicia: “The Vuelta Salamanca team is replicated for this race adding Gabriele Bessega. This year it’s a slightly softer race and will start with a prologue. We have good time trialists. The race is hard, but it doesn’t have an extremely tough mountain top finish. We will have to ride the race based on how we come out of the prologue. We’ll try to do some good sprints as well”.

Álex García: “It’s a race that I’m especially excited to race, because my whole family on my mother’s side is Galician and on my father’s side, from Bierzo on the border with Galicia, and racing in Galicia feels like racing at home… Although personally I’m not as good as I’d like to be, I’m looking forward to it. The route is somewhat different from previous years, there is no high mountain day, which is where everything is usually decided. Of course, there is not a flat meter, the whole day will be a hard terrain that will make that any day at any time things could happen”.

Stage 1: Sarria – Sarria (7km) C.R.I