A demanding Volta a Galicia to dream about and to close the season
Sixteen formations, eight of them Galician with the additional point of motivation and combativeness that this supposes, will compete during four days for the maximum in a race that does not cease to surprise every year with its routes. An elite and U23 race, but with proposals worthy of professionalism, of extreme hardness at times. And this 2023 will be no exception. The Volta a Galicia arrives, the end of the road for the EOLO-KOMETA Cycling Team U23 this season. The structure of the Contador Foundation, which achieved the victory in the final general classification a year ago with Fernando Tercero, now professional, goes with a team formed by Edoardo Alleva, Luca Bagnara, Tommaso Bessega, Haimar Etxeberria, Álex García, Antonio González and Raúl López. Both Alleva and Gonzalez were already present at the race a year ago.
The mention of extreme hardness was neither gratuitous nor casual. The team led by Juan Carlos Muñoz and Francisco Brea has once again designed a really complicated route. To start with a time trial, also with its spice given the ascent to the Alto de Santa Lucia and the return via O Pousa, always surrounding the surroundings of the old mine of Dos Medos, a deposit from which the Romans extracted gold. The following day, with the same start and finish, and a passage through a contrameta, a day with a markedly mountainous finish in which the peloton will pedal through the foothills of the Sierra de O Courel. A Casela, 7 km at an average of 5.4%, has significant ramps, with three very hard kilometres and a descent that will have to be managed with due caution. Airapadrón, the summit of this edition (969 m altitude), has similar characteristics.
The third stage is the queen day due to its intermediate route, conceived for strategic bets and distant offensives due to the location of the very hard pass of A Moa (969 m of altitude): a sustained wall that starts next to the Sil and climbs in the mountains with very sustained slopes in the hardness, always above 8%, to give way later to 50 kilometres without punctuated peaks, but constantly alternating descents with ascents, before a long descent and the steepest ascent to A Pobra de Trives. A stage with more than 3,000 metres of accumulated gain.
Lago Castiñeiras, the last day, presents three very hard kilometres, one above 11%, likely to break the race by themselves. And it will come after having faced Pe da Moa and still to face O Pituco in the vicinity of the finish. A final section that will not be easy at all, in short.
Álex García, although he lives in Barcelona, has family roots in Ourense and knows well some of the routes proposed in this edition. “The time trial and the first two stages are quite close to my home town, but the Pobra de Trives stage is 30 kilometres away. So in general I would say that the proposed route is very tough, which is something that I personally love, without forgetting that there are some really, really beautiful areas. If we add to all this the fact that it’s close to home, it will be an even more special Volta a Galicia for me, with people I love very close to me and with passes that I usually ride. Of all the route I would highlight A Moa, in the third stage, for its hardness; and the end of that day in Trives”.
Route
14th September | Stage 1: A Pobra do Bollón – A Pobra do Bollón (6.7 km ITT).
15th September | Stage 2: A Pobra do Bollón – A Pobra do Bollón (148 km).
16th September | Stage 3: A Pobra de Trives – A Pobra de Trives (140 km).
17th September | Stage 4: Pontevedra – Pontevedra (133.6 km).
