“Juanpe’s victory last year is an incentive, a very attractive reason to try to do well”
28th Trofeo Guerrita
Alcantarilla – Alcantarilla (155,5 km)
A photo of the poster announcing this edition, which also opens the official roadbook, defines and specifies a claim: Juan Pedro López raises his arm as a winner, imitating the gesture popularized by Alberto Contador, after beating a Cristian Mota with whom he escaped with 14 seconds on the pack. The Sevillian, a year ago, signed a great victory with which he got into the fight for the Copa de España and began to cement his leap to professionalism, a few months later. The Trofeo Guerrita (Guerrita Trophy) arrives, consolidated in one of the fundamental events of the Spanish Cup; an enclave that brings unbeatable memories to the structure of the Kometa Cycling Team. In 2018, the third round of the competition. In 2019, things from the calendar, the second. And always demanding.
“Juanpe’s victory last year is an incentive, a very attractive reason to try to do well and try to match what was achieved last year”. This is Carlos García, the young man from Madrid who will be one of the members of the seven Kometa Cycling Team in Murcia. Sergio García, Eduardo Pérez-Landaluce, Álex Martín, Alejandro Regueiro, Alejandro Ropero and Yago Segovia complete the team that will once again be led by Rafa Díaz Justo from Toledo. “It’s going to be the first tough race and it’s going to allow us to really see where we are and how we have to face everything that’s coming”, predicts García.
Alejandro Ropero from Granada, with 23 points and placed in the fourteenth position in the provisional general classification after finishing in the same position in the Guadiana Circuit, is the best classified in the general classification of the Spanish Cup by the Kometa Cycling Team.
Facing the Trofeo Guerrita 2019, the route has undergone some important variations. The fundamental one is that the hardness will be concentrated in a double pass through the Alto de la Perdiz, whose almost fifteen kilometers will be decisive in the resolution of the second round of the Spanish Cup.
The organization, as it explained days ago, argues that this change is due to the “deterioration of the roads where the race has usually run”. La Perdiz (855 metres high) is not an extremely hard ascent, but its length will be crucial and will make a dent in the peloton, although from the top of the second pass to the finish line of the Alcantarilla main street, next to its Constitution gardens, there are 48.8 kilometres left. “The Guerrita itself is a very hard race, but the length of the port, and that double step, gives it a plus of difficulty,” says director Rafa Diaz Justo.
“In Olías I had good sensations and the team did a very good race. It was a pity that the wind did not blow, because otherwise we would have blown the race,” explains the Asturian Edu Perez-Mendiluce, who after his participation in the Toledo race faces the second appointment of the Copa de España: “Facing the Trophy Guerrita I have a lot of desire and confidence. It will be the first of the Cup races that are practically followed during this month and I think that, given the evolution of Don Benito, everything is very open. We have great assets to make a great race”.
“After so much time training, I’m really looking forward to competing. Let’s see if the team can at least repeat what they did last year”, says the Catalan Álex Martín, who will face his first race in the elite Spanish Cup and U23 after jumping from the junior Kometa Cycling Team.
(automatic translation, sorry for mistakes)
