The fans of cycling is full of mitom. But that ability to remember, revive and idolize the legends of the past has to be fed with new deeds so as not to enter a loop. You have to update the references. Renew the stories. Not to be tempted to settle in melancholy. The Volta to Catalonia knows well.
From that mission, to create new unforgivable memories, Rubèn Peris, general director of the Catalan round is responsible. “Although it is the cyclists who give the show, huh,” he clarifies. The innovations and surprises that it has been adding to the tour – he passed from two to three finals – are taxing great emotions such as the triplet of the ineos on the podium of 2021, the great attack of Carapaz and Higuit Pogacar. “The 2024 was a great volta, there is no doubt. It is good that every year we are overcoming, I like it,” says Peris, without fear of having touched the ceiling with the four stages that the Slovenian won.
The general is very open. I am almost certain that anyone will win with more than three minutes like Pogacar “
Without the world champion, who chose a classic calendar, and with the loss of Jonas Vingegaard after the fall and abandonment in Paris-Niza-“You have to respect their decision and want to go with caution”-, the organization rubs its hands with a “luxury” participation: Roglic, Simon Yates, Kuss, Bernal, Geraint Thomas, Carapaz, Ayuso, Ayus But Landa, Ben O’Connor … “The general is very open. I am almost certain that anyone is going to win with more than three minutes as Pogacar did,” Peris progresses.
Having a superstar perhaps makes the race more foreseeable, but with that cast of protagonists there is land so that there is a lot of battle and launch many attacks with the finals in La Molina, after climbing the crerueta (Wednesday), in the monastery of Montserrat at a stage in which there is not a flat meter (Thursday), and in the Sanctuary of Queralt, after crowning the imposing Pradell and the hill Saturday).
The Danish is low after leaving Paris-Niza
Without a dominant superstar as winner of 2024 or Vingegaard, the race will be free and unpredictable
Coinciding with the millenary, Montserrat will be a goal 30 years after the Frenchman Laurent Jalabert won there. But in the Berguedà they still remember the great victory of Pogacar last year, with the centers crowded with an enforced audience. “It was a great stage and just ending the mayor of Berga already told me: do we repeat?”
Map of the 104th Volta to Catalunya and first stage
A day that was and will be a massive party in part thanks to the drivers of the Berguedà Cycling Spring Cycling Collective, which floods the weeks prior to the arrival of the platoon with activities. “He was born from five friends hung with a lot of love for the territory. We think that cycling can be the engine and the lever to put on the map a region in no man’s land,” says Sergi Fernández.
La Molina Station and the imposing and hard port of Pradell can be other classification judges
“Last year we set the goal of demonstrating, with the unprecedented climb to Pradell, that Berguedà is a very hard zone to make cycling. And we seek to teach that it is not two days ago but there is a lot of history behind,” he explains about the motivation that moves them.
Last year we show that this region can be very hard to make cycling. And we seek to teach that there is a lot of story behind “
Because the arrival in Queralt coincides with the triumph, half a century ago, by Eddy Merckx in a chrono -scarce from Casserres to the sanctuary in the disappeared Catalan setman. In the town that was the exit they have placed a statue in their honor created by Abel Castells. That day the Belgian defeated Ocaña, Zetemelk and Gimondi, who were among the top five. “It was the Pogachar of the time,” summarizes Fernández, who is still putting chicken skin when he remembers the passage of the Slovenian, already escaped, through the Baga de Queralt, where he saw the stage last year. And that is why, at the top of Queralt they have devised a mural that unites the two cyclists celebrating their triumphs in the same stage.
The Moreneta and Merckx are two symbols that will be present in the Volta that starts in Sant Feliu de Guíxols on Monday and ends Sunday in Montjuïc.
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