22 Jul 2020

The best cycling returns to its high level in a Vuelta a Burgos

42nd Vuelta a Burgos
From 28 July to 1 August

With its adaptations, with its precautions, but it returns; the great cycling returns and it does it in Burgos. The health emergency due to the coronavirus called into question its celebration. The progressive adaptation to the new normality and the dates originally foreseen for its dispute ended up squaring with a view to opening a new calendar of the UCI that, reduced, mutilated, extends until November: the Vuelta a Burgos was celebrated. And with it, after the study of the resulting calendar, the return to the competition of the Kometa-Xstra Cycling Team.

And between that previous expectation and the later confirmation, a multitude of requests for training to take part in the new cycling. Burgos, a very popular race. The organization, dependent on the Provincial Council and with Marcos Moral at the head for years, confirmed the participation of 22 squads. “The criterion was to include first the Spanish, the second criterion was the fidelity of the usual teams and then those of the World Tour, which had to be 14 by UCI regulations”, he recalled a few days ago. The participation, it is a fact, is going to have an absolutely unprecedented level for the event.

The Hungarian Márton Dina, the Italians Alessandro Fancellu, Antonio Puppio and Riccardo Verza and the Spaniards Alejandro Ropero, Diego Pablo Sevilla and José Antonio García make up the ‘seven’ that will take part on the roads of Burgos, on a route of almost 800 kilometres divided into five stages. The Vuelta a Burgos will finish again in its iconic Lagunas de Neila. And as it has been happening since its debut in 2017, the Picón Blanco will host the race again; for the third day, a key, demanding finish, with its nine kilometres at an average gradient close to 9%. With a first stage in the provincial capital, two more days, the second and the fourth, invite to a resolution to the sprint or to a pulse between the escape and the peloton.

“In a race with the level that this Vuelta a Burgos is going to have we have very clear ideas. To be attentive, to ride together and in front, to save the race situations, to fight to be in the sprints, to fight for the secondary classifications and, in short, to look for our options without giving up any dream. In this race the structure has won thanks to Matteo Moschetti two years ago. Moreover, this Vuelta a Burgos is very special. Cycling is back on track. It comes from three very bad months, where the states of form or the psychological assimilation of such a hard period can also bring some unknowns”, comments the director Jesús Hernández.

“Last year’s Vuelta a Burgos was a great experience for me, it was my first really big race and I learned a lot”, remembers Márton Dina, 19th overall in 2019. “I can’t wait to put on a bib again, I can’t wait. I’ve worked very hard over the past few months and I can say that my form is good. The feeling will be the same as when the season starts in January. But because of the small size of this season I also think that every race will be much harder than under normal circumstances, of course Burgos too. Everyone is aware that we only have two or three months to show what we are capable of. I think it is very good to know the route, I still remember some points that will be very important and where I have to be 100% concentrated”.

Alejandro Ropero comes back to a race where he enjoyed his first experience of professionalism as a stagiaire. He rode in the break the same day Matteo Moschetti won the sprint. “That Vuelta a Burgos gave me a lot of experience, it showed me that I was working well and that I had to continue like that for the return to the amateur field; I came back with a lot of confidence. It is true that now we will face it in a different way: it will be the first race of the ‘new year’, we know that there will be nerves, much more level. It’s more difficult to carry weight in the race, the weight of other years, but we’re going to fight to show ourselves. We’re racing on the best possible race”.

The stages.
28 July: Burgos/Catedral-Burgos/Cerro del Castillo (157 km).

29 July: Castrojeriz-Villadiego (168 km).