Alex Aranburu wins Spanish national championships - Movistar dominates as Oier Lazkano rides to second
Cycling
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.
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.
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.
Read also
Results powered by FirstCycling.com
Rúben SilvaEditor-in-Chief
A founding contributor to CyclingUpToDate since its launch in January 2022, Ruben Silva has played a central role in shaping the site’s editorial direction and long-term growth. Before joining the project, he built his experience through independent blogging at Echelons Hub and by producing race previews for Ciclismo Internacional, developing a strong analytical voice rooted in daily engagement with professional cycling.
Beyond editorial work, he has been closely involved in the expansion and coordination of CyclingUpToDate’s wider network, helping establish and support sister platforms across multiple languages. This includes ongoing collaboration with CiclismoAlDia (Spanish), CiclismoAtual (Portuguese), WielrennenUpToDate (Dutch), and RadsportAktuell (German), contributing to a shared editorial vision and consistent international coverage.
He also helps oversee editorial governance across the network, setting standards for accuracy and consistency and coordinating updates or corrections when needed.
Originally from the Porto metropolitan area in Portugal, he holds a bachelor’s degree in Geography. His path into cycling journalism was shaped not through formal media training, but through independent reporting, community engagement, and sustained on-the-ground involvement in the sport.
Over the course of his career, he has conducted approximately 100 interviews across road cycling and cyclocross, ranging from one-to-one conversations and online formats to press conferences and on-site pre- and post-race coverage. His interviews include leading riders, team managers, and prominent figures within cycling media: Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard, Mathieu van der Poel, Primoz Roglic, Wout van Aert, Joao Almeida and Tom Pidcock; managers like Patrick Lefevere and Joxean Matxin; and YouTube personality Bryan Kennedy (BKXC)...
Within 18 months of launch, he helped grow CyclingUpToDate’s English-language platform into one of the most-read cycling news websites, built entirely from the ground up. As both a professional journalist and lifelong cycling enthusiast, his focus remains on delivering accurate, timely, and well-contextualized coverage.
claps 2visitors 1
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- So?Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- The UCI do have their favorites.
Front24208-11-2026 - On a positive note, you maybe notice turning this topic into a discussion has the benefit of eliminating certain participants who do not see how they can turn it back to their sole interest ;-)Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- People see what they want to. I am actually the opposite of your accusation, probably more of a rebel than most of you who don’t get the big picture. The difference is, I don’t go moaning publicly about the consequences of my transgressions, I understand the need for rules and I take my OWN responsibility when deciding to ignore or break them or doing so involuntarily. I will also not hesitate to state my case or argue vehemently when relevant, sometimes it works, sometimes it makes things worse but that’s the price to pay for principles and having character.Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- That may be but that was unknown to others and nothing says that’s the whole truth. Again, don’t try to misinterpret, it is a call and technically it is correct. Besides, even if there is a valid reason, that does not disqualify the ruling or punishment as far as the rules have been developed. I don’t think they’re as far as in football where for handball there is a distinction (in some ways and specific cases) between intentional or not. And football can be just as harsh and people live with it, eg the offside rule, also judged to within tiny fractions but often wrong or ignored. It’s the nature of every collective organisation and sometimes I wonder if our rebellion against it isn’t seated in the feelings we carry from the injustices we’ve felt personally, like being flashed driving 1km/h too fast when we are explained limits are just a security measure but we are absolutely certain not to have endangered anyone with our transgression. The problem is, nobody has better solutions and no 2 people have the same interpretation of where a limit should be.Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- Because for you deviated implies the other rider MUST have been made to fall and fail to finish ??? I don’t know if you ride a bike but next time someone carves you up or drives dangerously close, just hold back from those feelings of changing something, reporting or filming or even complaining. Everyone will just say, hey you’re still here undamaged, doesn’t seem like anyone did anything.Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- And we, what are we doing?Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- And yet, it attracts people, even you. What’s more, it attracts the rival fanboys to fill cyberspace with endless pointless my hero is better than your hero blabla that’s all been heard before and only helps sell the site as an advertising platform. You know what the solution is but most can’t resist. No different than women who follow and discuss celebs through gossip magazines.Jumpyjohn08-11-2026
- he is doing 460 watts for 35 min to achieve 7 w/kg with VO2 at 96 , just unreal numbers.abstractengineer08-11-2026
- Just do it, and put up with the consequencesJumpyjohn08-11-2026
Loading
Alex Aranburu campeón de España en ruta‼️ #CEMadrid24 🇪🇦
Write a comment