The Fundación Contador Selection Camp will not be held this year
In 2021, the Contador Foundation will not organise the Selection Campus in which each year it chose the new riders, second year cadets or first year juniors, who joined the junior team with a view to the following season. After a thorough analysis of the situation, and with the endorsement of the 2020 experience, the current context does not allow the development of all the activities in accordance with the spirit and motivation with which this initiative was launched in July 2013.
After originally being held in the town of Pinto (Madrid) and in recent years in the city of Zaragoza, the eighth edition was to be held in Oliva Nova Beach & Golf Resort (Valencia), but the social and health situation led to a profound change of plans and the implementation of an entirely telematic edition which, given the circumstances, was a complete success.
The plan was to recover the Selection Campus for its ninth edition in the same terms in which it had been developed until 2020, and even a new venue was already in place, but the impossibility of doing so has led to this tough decision. With a view to the new additions to the youth team for next season, the selection of cyclists will be supervised by the sports management of the Foundation’s competitive area and will follow the same guidelines as the U23 team or the ProTeam.
In this sense, in the absence of the Campus, all cyclists interested in being part of the youth structure of the Contador Foundation can send their candidacy through the various communication channels of the Contador Foundation, with the email address campus@fundacioncontadorteam.com at the front.
Félix García Casas, sports manager of the Contador Foundation: “The current situation is still complicated and after a thorough assessment of the situation we are aware of the difficulty of implementing this format of selection of riders through a campus that we have been doing these years. This big event in the life of the teams has been very effective so far. We hope that everything will return to normality with a view to the future, although it is also a good time to assess whether or not the role of the campus should be exactly the same in terms of motivation and methodology in the current context of cycling training, with earlier specialisation and an increasingly advanced pathway for cyclists. It is an exercise that we must now reflect on”.
Fran Contador, general manager of the Contador Foundation: “I’m very sad that the Selection Campus won’t go ahead this year, because it has been a key part of this project since it all began. A moment that we are very fond of and that we look forward to with special interest, because in these categories, at these levels, the enthusiasm and excitement that you see in the kids is something really wonderful. Very authentic cycling, in short. Last year, because of COVID-19, we were forced to do it virtually, but in the end we lost the essence of what we believe this initiative should be. At the end of the day, one of the strong points of the Campus is that weekend of coexistence and fun for a group of kids who are united by their passion for cycling. There are many uncertainties to be able to carry it forward in the same terms and we believe that the most sensible thing to do is to proceed with caution and not to hold it”.
