“I was lucky enough to crash into a bush that stopped me. The bike was at the bottom of a ravine”
Volta Castelló
Etapa 2: Onda – Onda (126,5 km)
This Friday was a very demanding day in the Volta a Castellón. A complicated orography, with many slopes and winding routes in which the U23 team of the Contador Foundation did not miss his appointment with the fight. But sometimes things do not go as planned and we must be thankful that the scares remain just that. The second stage of the Vuelta went to Igor Arrieta, the new leader, and left us with the scare of the fall of our Cantabrian Álvaro García on the last descent, when he was in the lead of the race.
It happened on the descent of the Alto del Salto del Caballo. In a curve Álvaro suffered a fall and went flying over the guardrail. “I was feeling very well. At the start of the climb I had started from the very beginning and I had gone with four other riders. At the top we grouped up with ten others coming from behind. We went at full speed, taking risks. At the end, on a right-hand bend, I hit the guardrail, jumped over it and was lucky enough to fall into a bush that slowed me down. It cushioned me a lot. The bike was at the bottom of a ravine, many metres down. I’m in pain, but I’m fine. What bothers me the most is that the good form I was in, all the good work we’ve been doing these weeks, I won’t be able to show it on the road”.
García came second last, escorted by the great Yago Segovia, more than sixteen minutes behind the winner. The loss was an anecdote to the scare of a day that had started very well, with the Italian Andrea Montoli and the Catalan Arnau Gilabert very active in the search for the breaks. Gilabert would ride in a breakaway with eight other riders during a good part of the race and at the finish line he would be the first rider of the team, 17th, 9 seconds behind the winner. “It was a hard, hard, very hard day. I was able to ride in a couple of interesting breakaways. In the final kilometres, Álvaro’s fall made us lose control a bit, because we didn’t know anything. Now it’s time to go for it. Nine seconds in a stage like this Saturday’s, if you have the legs, it’s not much”, says Gilabert, who is 16th overall. The race faces its queen stage this Saturday.
Félix García Casas, team manager in the Castellón race: “It was a pity, he was our strongest rider for the overall, he was always in front and in fact he fell in the fight to be at the head of the race. Álvaro was doing very well. It was a very bad crash. We couldn’t find the bike on the slope, down the ravine. It was one of those crashes that leaves you shocked”.
[📷 Cxcling / Volta Castelló]
