Facing an anniversary Volta a Castellò with a young and versatile team
Gaining one day of competition with respect to 2022, thus increasing to four stages, and now under the organisation of the Club Ciclista Miguel Manrubia. These are the main lines of a new Volta a Castellò that reaches forty editions on the roads. Forty editions of cycling promotion and a prelude to professionalism that in recent years have also come to value the rural world with a firm commitment to vindicate the interior and fight against depopulation. Of the more than 587,000 inhabitants living in the province, practically two thirds live on the Mediterranean coast. In the inland regions, up to twenty villages have fewer than a hundred inhabitants.
The province of Castellón has one of the most rugged orographies in the whole of the Iberian Peninsula. Although it does not have the high altitudes of other mountainous enclaves of the Sistema Ibérico (the provincial summit is at Penyagolosa, at an altitude of 1812 metres), it does have a high density of mountains and a very rugged terrain. This guarantees that the design of any stage will always end up accumulating a lot of positive elevation gain. Only the last stage, the most coastal, has less than 2,000 metres of cumulative positive vertical gain. On the second day, the one that travels up to altitude, there are almost 3,000 metres (and without ever exceeding the maximum altitude of 790 metres). And on Saturday, a high finish: the climb to the village of Bel, from Rossell, is 8.5 kilometres at an average of 6%, with many ramps of over 10%. It is not unreasonable to think that the overall could be decided there; it will certainly be reduced to very few contenders ahead of the final stage, in which the always electric Desierto de las Palmas (7.7 km at 5.1%) has to be climbed.
The EOLO-KOMETA Cycling Team returns to the province of Castellón with a team formed by Edoardo Alleva, Luca Bagnara, Gabriele Bessega, Álex García, Raúl López and Sebastiano Minoia. Isaac Canton from La Mancha will be in charge of the management of the squad in this race in which last edition, in which both Alleva and Minoia were present, they achieved a good performance with a double presence in the final podium with David Domínguez and Javi Serrano.
The stages.
8th June | Stage 1: La Vall d’Uixó – Bejís (146 km).
9th June | Stage 2: L’Alcora – Altura (158.5 km).
10th June | Stage 3: Benicarló – Bell (161 km).
11th June | Stage 4: Grau de Castellò – Grau de Castellò (126 km).
