The cycling event starts next year from the Catalan capital from the same place where the Copa América 2024 will start.
The runners will pass through the Sagrada Família, the Agba Tower and La Pedrera, along with other monuments of the city, with 14 kilometers and four districts.
Barcelona will host the August 26, 2023 the official start of the Vuelta with a stage that will be a tribute to the most emblematic monuments of the Catalan capital and to the heart of the 1992 Olympic Games, on its 31st anniversary. The first stage of the next Spanish round will be a 14-kilometre team time trial that will pass through buildings as Barcelona-like as the Agba Towerthe Sacred Family either The stone and will tour four districts of the city.
This Friday, in Utrecht, where the Vuelta 2022 begins, Barcelona picked up the witness of the Dutch city to host the great start of the cycling event in 12 months and David Escude, councilor for sports in the municipality of the Catalan capital, discovered the first details of a stage that aims to “bring cycling closer to citizens and tourism” with the intention that thousands of people can follow live and direct the development of the first stage, always free of charge, on the streets of the districts of Sant Marti, old city, Eixample Y saints. In the coming months, more secrets will be discovered about the places chosen to carry out, for example, the official presentation of the teams, on Thursday, August 24, and the exact point from where the first stage will start and arrive, as well as the goal of the second stage that will start from a Barcelona municipality still to be decided.
The Blue Pavilion
What was announced in Utrecht is that the start of the first stage of the Vuelta 2023 will be at the starting point of the Copa América, which is held a year later in Barcelona. “The Vuelta will be used to present the main stage of the Copa América & rdquor ;, indicated shieldedwhich was made official as the Pabelló Blau, that is, the Barcelona coastline, as the area chosen to start the next Spanish round.
The tour of 14 kilometers is already fully designed. La Vuelta asked Barcelona to avoid industrial estates, where it is always easier to control traffic as they cause fewer problems for the Guàrdia Urbana, so that cyclists could pass through the best-known areas of the city.
Thus, from the sea, the runners will go to the marine street to pass by National Theater of Catalonia Y The Auditori before looking for the Arc de Triomf and from there go to the Agba Towerthen the Poble Nouthe street of Guipuzcoa and then that of Arago to turn onto the street Majorca in order to find the Sacred Family.
Montjuic
Once the runners pass the famous basilica of Antoni Gaudí they will go to the Diagonal until the Passeig de Gracia to meet The stone before returning again to Calle de Aragó to the end to go down towards Plaza de Spainthe avenue of Maria Cristina and end with the Montjuïc Fountains.
“First of all, we want to recover the spirit of Barcelona in 1992 and bring the Vuelta closer to the citizens. For this reason, we did not want to leave the race only on Montjuïc, or set foot exclusively in the Eixample, and we have taken it through as many districts as the chosen kilometers allowed us & rdquor ;, he stressed shielded in Utrecht. In this way, Catalonia will once again host the Spanish round after three years of absence.
The collaboration of the Barça
For everything to go well, we have already talked to him. FC Barcelona so that he can ask laLiga to play as a visitor that weekend. According to the municipal officials displaced to the Netherlands, the azulgrana club He has committed himself and has agreed to play the match that corresponds to him within a year away from the Catalan capital.
In between there are municipal elections, next May, but whatever the result is, it will not influence the start of the Vuelta. Javier Guillén, director of La Vuelta tells this newspaper, “I have never encountered problems in Catalan town halls and we have left or arrived in cities such as Valls or Igualada”, municipalities that are under pro-independence administration.
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The Barcelona organization for the start of the Vuelta 2023 is also studying the possibility of setting up a maritime platform to be the starting point of the team time trial. What is clear is that the second stage will end in Montjuic and that on the third day the Spanish round will leave Catalonia. Andorra could be the destination.