Under23 Contador Foundation: 11 years building talent
The adventure of the Fundación Alberto Contador’s U23 team will not continue in 2025 after 11 seasons of competing. A structure that began in 2014, which would be the germ of a professional project and that came to reinforce and give continuity to the junior team created the previous year. The ultimate goal was that the cyclists could continue their career by going through all the stages of training within the Alberto Contador Foundation teams.
During its 11 years of life, 93 cyclists have worn the team’s colors at some time in the under-23 category. Of these, 41 went on to ride in the professional peloton. That is, 44% of the riders who passed through the amateur squad were later professional cyclists. The data speak for themselves and reinforce the idea with which the team emerged in 2014.
When we review the team’s trajectory and the cyclists who competed in its ranks, two names stand out strongly above the rest: Juan Pedro López and Enric Más. Both reached the WorldTour after training with the Foundation and both have been the reflection for many young cyclists who seek, as they did at the time, to achieve their dream of becoming professionals.
Juan Pedro Lopez ‘Juanpe’ has been leader of the Giro d’Italia and has 2 victories in his palmares. Enric Mas has been on the podium in three Vueltas a España and has 6 victories. Juanpe’ recalls some anecdotes during the early years of the team: “I remember that we were going to compete in the Giro del Valle d’Aosta and we were going by car from Madrid. It was a fifteen-hour trip, no less. It was impressive, it was a bit dizzying, because of the fatigue, the trip… So many hours are a lot of work. Undoubtedly, that was one of the best trips of my life. We had a great time during that experience”.
Félix García Casas, national track cycling coach, was manager of the training structures of the Alberto Contador Foundation and recalls the beginnings of the team, which even came with some controversy: “The launch of the under-23 team was a revulsive for the category at the national level. It meant putting in value the idea of a subsidiary team of a future team in a higher category. It was the germ of a model, the concretion of an idea of development, of weaving a structure. A step further after the previous creation of a youth team. Far from, as it was said, coming to the demise of cycling, the under-23 team not only did not break anything, but it contributed to promoting an idea for the future”. Now, it is the Alberto Contador Foundation itself that is trying to adapt to a new model of cycling, a model, passing or not, in which cyclists arrive very young to professionalism, in many cases omitting their passage through the under-23 category.
In the process of growth of the team, incorporating not only talent, but also traveling companions that allowed the correct functioning of the structure, large companies such as Kometa, whose support allowed the subsequent jump to the continental category, or Skoda, which seven years later continues to share kilometers with the structure, without forgetting some more humble ones such as La Casa del Fisio or Sportlast, which have accompanied the Alberto Contador Foundation almost from the beginning. In 2020 was the first season in which AURUM bicycles accompanied the cyclists in their training and races. AURUM is the bicycle brand of Alberto Contador and Ivan Basso, which was put at the service of the cyclists’ needs to offer maximum guarantees during the competition.
During the 11 years of competition, the team have had up to eight different names:
- Fundación Contador Team (2014)
- Specialized – Fundación Contador Team (2015)
- RH+ – Polartec – Fundación Contador Team (2016)
- Polartec – Fundación Contador Team (2017)
- Polartec Kometa (2018)
- Kometa u23 (2019-2021)
- Eolo – Kometa u23 (2022-2023)
- Team Polti Kometa u23 (2024)
The beginnings, as in all projects, were by no means simple. Rafael Díaz Justo, sports director, recalls: “The first year we did the Tour de Bretagne and we went with a diaphanous van and a diaphanous car. Adaptation was key, it was a necessity. It rained every day. Horrible weather. Fran (Contador), who was with us, went to a shopping center and bought a tent. It cost about 80 euros or so. That tent was in the team for several seasons providing a wonderful service, because the vans with awning was a luxury that came a few seasons later. With this anecdote I want to emphasize that the beginnings of the team were not a big deal. Not at all. They were difficult, precarious beginnings, as are those of all teams that start out, and with the additional handicap of traveling halfway across Europe. I think that, in a certain sense, we have been very adventurous and in that way we have started to set a pace that has been followed afterwards”.
During the seasons that the team has been competing, stage and overall victories have been achieved in the Vuelta Bidasoa, Vuelta a Zamora, Vuelta a León and Vuelta a Navarra, as well as victories in partial, team and finally the absolute of the Copa España. The first great results would come in 2014 with Enric Mas achieving the first podium in a general classification for the team. Mas was third in the Vuelta a Palencia. In addition, Juan Pedro Lopez would achieve in 2018 the victory in the general classification of the Vuelta al Bidasoa as one of his most outstanding results during his time in the category. In 2021 and 2022 the team managed with Davide Piganzoli to qualify among the top ten of the Giro d’Italia under-23 and with Fernando Tercero the second position in the Ronde de L’Isard, very outstanding milestones along with the victory of Álex Martín in the Volta a Galicia.
2022 was the sweetest year for the team on a sporting level. Almost twenty victories were achieved between stages, overall and one-day races, in addition to obtaining the coveted overall of the Spanish Cup with Fran Muñoz. Now a cyclist with the professional team, the Catalan tells how he experienced it: “The under-23 category is a very intense category, in which you live the fight for your dream in a context of many experiences and experiences. On the other hand, you see how things change from one world to another. From the Giro Baby, which I already thought was tremendous, to the Giro d’Italia… Another world. Although it’s a shame, in the face of change, the only thing left to do is to evolve, no matter how many feelings it implies. I came to the U-23 team from a relatively small, more familiar team. I came to one of the big structures of the Spanish peloton, a powerful team. Here I received a lot of confidence from the coaches and Rafa to fight for a goal. Everything has been contributions and learning in that preparation towards the goal of becoming a professional and, of course, I have only good words and best memories of the whole process,” Muñoz says. That 2022 season also saw the jump of five cyclists to the professional ranks, another milestone for the structure.
Unfortunately, however, not everything has been joy and good news. Losses have also accompanied the project, and among them stands out the name of Arturo Grávalos. Arturo was a cyclist on the under-23 team and later made the jump to the professional team as so many others have done. Arturo became ill, but recovered and returned to cycling with the resilience that characterized him. Unfortunately, illnesses are very cruel and Arturo passed away in 2023 from a brain tumor. In the 2024 season, the team’s clothing incorporated a crown on the back of the neck so that wherever he is, Arturo will accompany us on every pedal around the world.
And 2024 arrived. It was time to say goodbye, for now, to this adventure that has been on the road for more than a decade. The last season has brought great results and 12 victories. Pablo ‘Garchu’ has added five of them, while Tommaso Bessega added three, Luca Bagnara two, Bálint Feldhoffer won the Hungarian U-23 Championship and the whole team won the team time trial at the Vuelta a Madrid.
The team has been present in the best races of the national and European calendar, always with ambition, but with the focus on the development of the cyclists of the squad: Ronde de L’Isard, Giro Next Gen, Giro del Valle de Aosta, Bidasoa Itzulia, Volta a Galicia, Vuelta a Madrid and the Spanish Cup have been, among others, races in which the team has once again left its mark. The team has also added many places of honor, moments in which the work has allowed the victory has been very close to our riders. Gabriele Bessega (twice 2nd and once 3rd), Gabriele Raccagni (eight times in the top 10), Samuel Novak, Dario Giuliano or Antonio Gonzalez are some of them.
In addition, the team has fulfilled one more season its good work with the future development of the riders of the structure. When these lines are published, it is confirmed that Pablo ‘Garchu’ and Gabriele Raccagni will be professionals in Team Polti Kometa 2025. In addition, Luca Bagnara and Raccagni himself had the opportunity to test themselves in the category as stagiaires.
“I would like to thank all the people who have been part of the U-23 structure. Thanks to their work, commitment and passion throughout these years, it has been possible for young boys who had the dream of becoming professional cyclists to become so today, and for others who have not made it to the top to enjoy the opportunity, living an experience that will surely have marked them for life,” explains Fran Contador, general manager of the Foundation. “We think that for our structure it is the best decision taking into account the evolution of cycling, but we will continue to work with the youth categories as we have done since our birth,” he adds.
With the feeling of a job well done and with our sights always set on the evolution of the cycling world, the Alberto Contador U-23 Foundation closes a cycle knowing that in the last 11 years it has marked a way of working and has fulfilled its objective of training cycling talent. See you soon!
