MADRID, 3 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The cyclist Alejandro Valverde will lead the Spanish team in the Gravel World Championship to be held this weekend in the Italian region of Veneto, in a national team completed with Iván García Cortina and Marta Romeu, according to a statement.
The Murcian, who won this year in La Indomable and the Hutchinson Ranxo Gravel, two events belonging to the UCI Gravel World Series, will put on a number to compete at the highest level this Sunday for the first time after his retirement.
Valverde will be the main representative of the Spanish team for this World Cup event that will host, like last year’s premiere, the Italian region of Veneto this weekend. In addition, the event will feature the presence of Movistar Team member Iván García Cortina, who has just finished 11th in the recently held European Road Championship.
In addition, the list of runners for the Spanish team will be completed by Sergio Mantecón, Alberto Losada, Ferrán Robert, Darío Gadeo, José María Sánchez, Eduardo Talavera, Julen Zubero and Irene Méndez.
Enrique Morcillo, an outstanding cyclist in long-distance MTB events, will also compete in this Gravel World Championship; Marta Romeu, cyclist from Laboral Kutxa who finished fourteenth last year in the Gravel World Championship; and Guayente Minchot, specialist in Gravel competitions, after requesting a ‘wild card’.
The women in the elite category will compete on Saturday, October 7, on a 140 km route and just over 1,600 meters of elevation gain, starting in Le Bandie and finishing in Pieve di Soligi. While the elite men will run on Sunday, October 8 on a route with start and finish in the same locations, but with a distance of 169 km that will lead them to accumulate almost 2,000 meters of elevation gain.
In last year’s edition, the Belgian Gianni Vermeersch and the French Pauline Ferrand-Prevot became the first rainbows of the discipline, while the podiums were completed by the Italian Daniel Oss and the Dutch Mathieu Van der Poel, in the elite men’s category , and the Swiss Sina Frei and the Italian Chiara Teocchi, in the elite women’s category.