An attractive route seduces a participation of many carats. Cycling is sometimes easy. It is enough to spin a striking and cheerful route for the cyclists to swirl at the start. Six winners of some great tour and seven other riders who know what it is to climb a podium of the three big ones make up the galaxy that today starts in the 102nd Volta a Catalunya, which has a stellar orbit through the territory, from the Pyrenees to Terres de l’Ebre, with three finals in the heights in three long climbs: Vallter (15 km uphill), La Molina (12 km) and the very tough Lo Port (8.6 km). Now all that remains is to reap the rewards in the form of a show and a fight to win the franjiverde jersey on the mountain of Montjuïc.
In Sant Feliu de Guíxols, the rainbow jersey of Remco Evenepoel, current world champion, winner of the last Tour of Spain and Liège, shines with its own light. The Belgian from Soudal (23) already knows what it is to win this course as he won the UAE Tour despite pressure from Adam Yates, with whom he will face off again. Evenepoel is one of those who does not know how to adopt a low profile, in that he resembles Pogacar. “I will compete to win but I would be very happy finishing on the podium”, says one of the wonder boys of today, who has the Giro on his horizon, in less than two months.
Be careful what you wish for because it can be fulfilled. The president of La Volta, Rubèn Peris, did not hide his desire. “I would be lying if I told you that I would not like to have the Slovenians,” he admitted to this newspaper a year ago. Well, 365 days later, Primoz Roglic, recent winner of the Tirreno-Adriatico, leads a Jumbo with a Tour flavor (with Kuss and Kruijswijk). On his way to 34 years old, Roglic does not waste anything. In his record he has stages in the Vuelta, the Tour and the Giro, but also successes in Romandía, Itzulia, Nice, Tirreno and Dauphiné. He lacks the Volta.
Sergio Higuita, the winner of the Volta 2022, will not be there, but the number 1 will go to his teammate from Bora Jai ??Hindley, brand new winner of the Giro d’Italia.
The Australian succeeded Egan Bernal in pink, a star whose career was cut short by a terrible accident while training in his country, Colombia. Also winner of the 2019 Tour, Bernal has not finished any one-week race that he has contested since his return to competition. For this reason, Ineos trusts the veteran Geraint Thomas, yellow in Paris in 2018.
The sixth in contention is Richard Carapaz, who has changed the black of the Ineos for the pink of Education First. The Olympic gold and the 2019 Giro of the Ecuadorian were not a flash in a day. Last year he was second in Italy and won three stages in the Vuelta, in addition to turning the Volta upside down in the Montsant mountains with Higuita.
In the last three editions there has not been any Spanish cyclist on the final podium. If anyone can remedy it, it is Mikel Landa, who lacked ground on the Tirreno. The climber from Alava can say that he has already faced Roglic and Pogacar and has stood up against both. Despite the fact that he has always had a hard time winning – he only has three generals: two Vueltas a Burgos and one Giro del Trentino – landismo is a fast fuse and easily gets excited.
The pity for the fans is that the two great hopes, the youngsters Juan Ayuso and Carlos Rodríguez, who last year were already rubbing shoulders with the best in the Volta, cannot be there this time. The UAE cyclist, who finished 2022 in style with his third place on the podium in the last Vuelta, has not yet been able to debut in 2023 due to tendinitis in the Achilles tendon that does not leave him alone put on a bib For his part, the Ineos runner, current Spanish road champion, fought in Andalusia and had the bad luck of an ugly fall in a sterrato section on Strade Bianche in which he fractured his clavicle, forcing him to abandon.
