Carlos Rodríguez and Pello Bilbao, Spain’s hope to dethrone McNulty in the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana
The first major stage race of the European cycling calendar starts this Wednesday, February 9 from Orihuela with a team time trial.
The duel between two of the best sprinters in the world as Jonathan Milan and Kaden Groves is another of the great attractions of the race.
Valencia. February 3rd 2025.
The VCV 2025 – Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana Gran Premi Banc Sabadell opens the season of grand tours in the international cycling calendar. The Valencian round starts this Wednesday, February 9 from Orihuela, and it does so with a team time trial that will face some of the best teams in the world in this specialty. A stage that will mark the future of a race in which the American Brandon McNulty defends the victory achieved a year ago in the 75VCV. Spaniards Carlos Rodríguez and Pello Bilbao are two of the aspirants to snatch the victory from McNulty, as well as Colombian Santiago Buitrago and Russian Aleksandr Vlasov (second and third overall a year ago). Apart from the final victory, the sprinters’ duel between Jonathan Milan and Kaden Groves is another great attraction of the Valencian round.
Once the team time trial is over, the next three stages will concentrate all the mountainous terrain of this VCV 2025. It will be there when the contenders for the final victory will have to pull out all the stops to snatch the lead from the winner of the first day in Orihuela. Whoever comes out first in Saturday’s queen stage between Oropesa del Mar and Portell de Morella will be far ahead, but victory is not assured. For the last stage, the riders will ride close to the Mediterranean Sea and will cross up to five delimited sections with a strong possibility of wind. This will be an incentive to be taken into account by all the teams and will keep the uncertainty about the final winner until the last kilometers of the last stage.
A Volta deeply marked by the tragedy of the DANA
On October 29th, 2024, the DANA that hit the Valencian Community put in serious trouble the celebration of this VCV 2025. The organization saw how its warehouses were flooded and almost all the material used to carry out the race was lost. In addition, two of the five towns where the stages started were directly affected, Algemesí and Alfafar. The following months were a struggle to recover as much material as possible, as well as to ensure that the stages could and should be held in those towns. Finally, it has been possible to maintain the route and stages 3 and 5 will serve both to pay tribute to those affected, and to put the focus on what happened and the need to continue helping people who lost everything. Among other actions, the leaders’ jerseys of this VCV 2025 will bear the names of all the towns affected by the DANA tragedy.