Victory for Álex Martín at the Peña Ciclista Monje Grand Prix in Fuenlabrada
XXXIV Gran Premio Peña Ciclista Monje
Fuenlabrada-Fuenlabrada (97,6 km)
The love affair between the Fundación Contador´s junior team and one of the most outstanding events in the youth calendar in the Community of Madrid, the Gran Premio Peña Ciclista Peña Monje in the town of Fuenlabrada, continues. The Catalan Álex Martín continued the good run of the structure that supports the Polartec-Kometa, three successes in four years and always with presence on the podium in this period, to win the 2018 edition ahead of his teammate Carlos Rodríguez.
Martín and Rodríguez break shortly after the first of three climbs that marked the 97.6 kilometers of the race, Cuesta Nueva, an attack on a small slope that came to give continuity to a previous movement of also’polartec-kometa’ Manuel Jesus Carrellán. The two, who were well-connected, quickly opened the gap and consolidated a gap that they managed to overcome comfortably in the three minutes. The rest of the team remained in control in a platoon where no other team organized to try to hunt at the head of the race.
Facing the finish line, Martin put his name to a group victory for the team. A minute and a half later, a main squad led by David Gómez arrived with Luis Miguel Mendoza, Iván Oliver and Miguel Patiño in the top ten. Carlos Rodriguez won the classification of the flying goals and the Polartec-Kometa was the best of all the participating teams.
“We are very happy with the way things have gone. Once we managed to consolidate the breakaway we rode very hard and everything went as smoothly as possible,” explains Martín. Guillermo Gutiérrez, the team’s director, adds: “The team worked perfectly, as we had marked out in the technical talk. Congratulations to all of you, because you have done a great job. Victory in the team standings is very valuable to us because of what it means to us”.
This victory comes as part of a weekend of concentration of the team at the Hotel Sercotel Princesa de Éboli de Pinto. “The concentration continued as planned and I think we have achieved what we were looking for, bringing the team together and recovering the same tone as at the beginning of the year, giving the kids back their enthusiasm and reviving the group’s commitment”, explains Gutiérrez.
The next objective of the training will be the next round of the Spanish Cup of the category, to be held in Unquera (Cantabria) on June 17. In this sense, Guillermo Gutiérrez concludes: “We are risking our leadership jersey and we are going to try to cut points in the team classification, which is one of our goals for each season”.
(automatic translation, sorry for mistakes)
