Andalusian David Martin sets the pace on the first day of the Sanroma Memorial
XXI Memorial Sanroma
Almagro-Almagro (105 km)
Second day of competition, second victory for the u23 structure of the Alberto Contador Foundation in a sweet start to the campaign. David Martín from Seville made his debut in the year’s list of winners by imposing his speedy top in the first day of the Sanroma Memorial, a sprint in which he beat Miguel Ángel Ballesteros from Murcia (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) and Adrián Cobos from Cordoba (Team Extremadura), while his teammate Álex Martín signed in sixth place.
Martín materialized this way the great work deployed by his companions, with other four riders of the Kometa-Xstra present in a group of twelve units that was formed in the last measures of this first day in Castilian-La Mancha lands. A first movement of seven cyclists, with Joan Martí Bennassar, Álex Martín and David Martín, grew to twelve units with the arrival from behind of a quintet where Fernando Tercero and Mario Vilches were riding. A contribution of forces that made a great work to Martín while from behind Aluminios Cortizo and Froiz tried to finish with some minimum differences.
“Jonny and Alex jumped, I saw them starting to catch time and I jumped from behind. A few of us were caught up afterwards. We reached the finish line with five riders from the team and they did a perfect job so that I only had to sprint”, said Martín.
Rafa Díaz Justo, director of the Kometa-Xstra Cycling Team: “It looks very nice, two out of two, but you have to keep your feet on the ground because this category is very complicated and you also need that spark of luck. Today we had it and we did quite well in the race. The day went very, very fast, with a lot of attacks, but also somehow self-controlled because we were going so fast. At the end of the race we moved a bit, in a breakaway of seven cyclists we had three and in a later one of five we had another two; at the end there was a cocktail of twelve cyclists where there were two dangerous riders for a sprint like Ballesteros and Montenegro. But the team worked very well and David showed that he is a very fast cyclist with a good chance of winning. Now, facing Sunday, there is a hard day that will become even harder. David is in good shape, but the terrain is complicated”.
In fact, this Sunday the Sanroma Memorial concludes with a 145-kilometre-long stage in which the ascent to the Alto de Hortezuelas, the great orographical difficulty of the event, is in the middle. Along the route there are several steep slopes where the more than presumably high pace can make the difference.
(automatic translation, sorry for mistakes)
