Unlike the previous day, in which the return of The return to Spain to Barcelona, 12 years after her last visit, she was completely overshadowed by the lack of lighting While it was taking place, this Sunday the City Council has been able to provide light to the cycling round by turning on the entire lighting system of Montjuicscene of end of the second stage this sunday.
This time, however, that extra reinforcement in lighting was not necessary because the runners were already at the finish line at 5:30 p.m., three hours before what happened in the time trial on Saturday, and they could guide themselves without problems with the same daylight.
After stating the day before that there was technical difficulties to change the lighting from one moment to the next in a scenario of “unpredictable” luminosity changes, since it uses a series of timers that are programmed annually -in summer at 20.45-, the Barcelona’s town hall The streetlights were already on around 3:00 p.m.
According to the regidor d’Esports, David Escudethis change from one day to the next in the procedure at the time of lighting is due to the fact that “there are two types of lighting: streetlights that are turned on with sensors -those that were seen lit yesterday- and others that use a timer and that are scheduled annually depending on the time of year.
The storm on Saturday that darkened the sky was “totally unforeseen and an attempt was made to reprogram the ignition, but it is a job that is done manually section by section and it was humanly impossible to reach the entire route,” he explained.
But today, according to Escudé, “I had predicted that there would be a storm and we have been able to light everything possible because manually we have had enough time“.
Guillén assumes responsibility
The CEO of La Vuelta, Javier Guillenhas wanted to put a cape on the Barcelona City Council and regarding the lackluster end of the first stage has indicated that “on Saturday we we were responsible for the decision that was made and we chose to keep it“. “Everything was prepared to do a stage with natural light” and that it was not expected to do it with an “overcast” that led to a situation of darkness that was not counted on.
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Guillén has ruled out that the race could be brought forward much more than what was already done after having carried out the entire road operation in the city with certain schedules. The director of La Vuelta has understood that a preview of the illumination of the entire city could not be improvised, but he has pointed out that it would not have been a sufficient solution for a “supervening” darkening. “The circuit was perfectly signposted and controlled by the Urban Guard. Barcelona is a great city and lighting services could not be improvisedr. It was something totally amazing that happened. There was an audience and international television channels and the stage could not be brought forward any further”, he indicated.
“We did a night race in 2010 and we know how much light is needed for a night race, and having the streetlights on would only have helped a little,” he concluded.