Alex Aranburu wins Spanish national championships - Movistar dominates as Oier Lazkano rides to second

Sunday, 23 June 2024 at 14:24

Within the national championships, the elite men's road cycling race of Spain was disputed this Sunday, June 23, in search of a new champion or, in the case of Oier Lazkano winning, the revalidation of the title by the Movistar Team rider. It was not going to be Lazkano, but this award was going to stay with the Spanish, as Alex Aranburu wins for the first time in his career.

Prolonging his great form after finishing 3rd in the Baloise Belgium Tour with a stage win along the way, Aranburu broke a streak of three consecutive years by also finishing 3rd in the Spanish Championships (2021, 2022 and 2023), and took the Spanish road champion's jersey, which he will already wear in the upcoming Tour de France.

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DEVELOPMENT

The race started at 9:25 am in San Lorenzo de El Escorial. The first part of the race was a brutal fight to consolidate the breakaway. After an hour and a half, finally formed a first breakaway of 14 riders, with representation, among others from Burgos BH, Kern Pharma, Euskaltel Euskadi and Movistar Team with Sergio Samitier, 1 minute and 15 seconds from the peloton and 125 km to go.

To keep the breakaway from gaining too much time, it was Iván García Cortina of Movistar who worked at the front of the peloton. With just over 70 km to go, the gap between the peloton and the breakaway remained at one minute.

With almost 40 kilometers to go, on the first climb to San Lorenzo, the pace of the race was tremendous, with Pelayo Sanchez in the lead after Movistar Team was in charge of chasing the breakaway. Behind the Asturian was Mikel Landa and Javier Romo. On the descent, Pelayo went one more gear and, with 31 km to go, the gap to the chasing group of Landa, Romo and Mario Aparicio was 28 seconds.

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Attacks by Mikel Landa and Pablo Castrillo caused a group to drastically reduce the gap to the leader, Pelayo Sánchez, to 10 seconds with 25 km to go. In fact, at almost 23 km the Asturian was to be chased by the group where Roger Adrià had also managed to enter. Alex Aranburu took advantage of this situation to launch his particular move and take the lead alone with 20 km to go.

With 16 km to go, Alejandro Franco (Burgos BH) suffered an unfortunate fall. Meanwhile, at the front, Aranburu had a considerable lead of 1 minute and 29 seconds. The chasing group worked together to prevent the Movistar Team rider from getting too far away. With less than 14 km to go the gap was 1 minute and 5 seconds.

With 11 and a half kilometers to go, Jesús Herrada started up in the chasing group to go after Alex Aranburu, who was at that moment exactly 1 minute ahead, and was joined in the chase by Pau Martí, Mikel Landa and Oier Lazkano. With 6 km to go, taking advantage of the descent, Aranburu's gap to the chasing group was still over a minute. In fact, he was 1 minute and 13 seconds ahead, beginning to savor his first victory in the Spanish Championship.

Alex Aranburu entered the final 3 kilometers with 1 minute and 18 seconds of advantage, and was to be proclaimed champion of Spain to wear the colors of his country throughout the next year, starting with the Tour de France. In the fight for silver and bronze, Oier Lazkano took 2nd place and Jesús Herrada, 3rd.