Egan Bernal and Nairo Quintana: the keys they have for the Tour of Catalonia

Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) will start as the rival to beat in the edition of the Tour of Catalonia, which will take place from March 18 to 24.

The organization has decided to have a route that will give special prominence to the mountains, with three stages at altitude and an unprecedented arrival at Queralt, which is convenient for the Colombians who will be in the test.

hard race

And in that group are Nairo Quintana, Egan Bernal, Esteban Chaves, Brandon Rivera, Sergio Higuita, Einer Rubio, Iván Sosa, Jesús Peña, Harold Tejada and Santiago Umba.

Pogacar will be alongside other Tour winners such as Geraint Tomas and Bernal and older champions such as Sepp Kuss, who won the Vuelta a España last year.

The route will have 24 scoring mountain passes – four special category and the same number for first class – and three high finishes: Vallter, Port Ainé and Queralt.

The test will start in Sant Feliu de Guíxols with a winding mid-mountain route (173.9 km), with the passes of Alt de la Banga (3rd), Alt dels Àngels (2nd) and Alt de Sant Grau (2nd) .

The second stage will come from Killed, on the coast and will end in Vallter (special), at 2,135 meters and after 185 km.

The next day, the caravan will arrive at Port Ainé (special), but first it must cross Port de Tosses (1st) and Port de Cantó (special), important days of the general classification.

The titles

For Colombians, this race is key, as it has been won five times: Alvaro Mejía (1993), Hernán Buenahora (1966), Nairo Quintana (2016), Miguel López (2019 and Sergio Higuita (2022).

The two high finishes are key for Bernal, Nairo and Higuita, who start with a plus over their compatriots, without leaving aside what Higuita, Umba and Rubio himself can do, who are breed of climbers.

Bernal and Quintana have a lot to say, although the man from Boyacá has already declared that he will go as a gregarious Enric Mas, the leader of the Movistar team, but they cannot be ruled out.

For the two Colombian riders, the ideal would be to fight for the 'top' five, they have what they have, plus Bernal, who comes from a seventh place in the Paris Nice.

Quintana is making his first race in Europe since that disqualification from the 2022 Tour de France, but he can feature.

Higuita arrives with a strong Bora team, in which the leader will be Alexsandr Vlasov, good year. Umba has a good option, because the Astana It does not arrive in Catalonia with a defined leader.

Pogacar is the favorite, but first you have to run and the Colombians have many options to appear.

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