Five days of tremendous harshness on Navarre’s roads
Return to Navarre
From 29 May to 2 June
Alessio Acco, Joan Martí Bennassar, Alessandro Fancellu, Arturo Grávalos, Álex Martín and the newcomers from the Ronde de l´Isard Alejandro Regueiro and Yago Segovia are the seven riders with whom the Kometa Cycling Team U23 faces the second of the stage laps of an intense cycle of competitions that extends between the months of May and June. The Vuelta Ciclista a Navarra will be this second commitment. And it emerges as a very difficult race due to the route it proposes.
Without a time trial, and over almost 660 kilometres, the five days of race that Miguel Sabalza, Marino Oskoz and Xabier Muriel have devised in M2Events is very tough. This is a demand that is also presupposed by a great fight for the high level of a participation with an important international component, with five foreign formations among the 21, three of them from Navarre, that will take part in the race.
Xabier Muriel, technical director of the Navarrese round, highlighted days ago that the 2019 track has meant a return to the origins. “It goes back to the essence of the Vuelta a Navarra, with longer stages, with more accumulated unevenness, also with its traps. We also mix the historical with the novel”, he indicated. Of the five stages, only the first presents a more favourable layout for a pure sprint if the wind does not prevent it.
The other four stages of the Vuelta a Navarra present a complicated layout, with terrain that is ideal for doing damage and marking differences, intermediate routes that require the support of a strong team. The main day will again be on Saturday, with a Pyrenean journey to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Muskilda, in Ochagavia, which includes an ascent over land, the Alto de Orbara. A race that will leave no one indifferent.
The stages.
29 May: Estella/Lizarra – Lodosa (139.7 km).
30 May: Pamplona – Sangüesa/Zangona (132.5 km).
31 May: Pamplona – Tafalla (139.5 km).
1 June: Tafalla – Muskilda (150.6 km).
2 June: Valle de Aranguren – Estella/Lizarra (97.3 km).
