News

The Basque Country is one of the most cycling-passionate places in the world, and due to its tradition and history, it hosts two UCI WorldTour events, the highest category in world cycling. These are the one-week race Itzulia Basque Country and the one-day race Donostia San Sebastián Klasikoa (better known as Clásica de San Sebastián), which starts and finishes in the coastal city of San Sebastián and takes place next Saturday 30 of July.

Route

The Donostia San Sebastián Klasikoa route has changed little in recent years, and this time it is identical to last year's. The route totals 222 kilometers and is one of the most mountainous one-day races of the season, without a flat meter. In the initial part of the race, the riders will have to overcome the climbs to Azcarrate (4.4 km at 7.5%), Urraki (8.8 km at 6.7%) and Alkiza (4.5 km at 5, 8%), although the decisive attacks are expected in the last three ascents: Jaizkibel (7.4 km at 5.8%), Erlaitz (4 km at 10.4%) and Murgul-Tontorra (2.1 km at 10%), last difficulty of the day that is crested 9 km from the finish line.

Favourites

As we were saying, this is a race for climbers, so the starting list is full of specialists: Tadej Pogačar (1,200), João Almeida (1,200), Remco Evenepoel (1,200), David Gaudu (1,000), Alejandro Valverde (800) , Michael Woods (800), Jay Hindley (800), Guillaume Martin (800), Simon Yates (1000), Wilco Kelderman (800), Geraint Thomas (800), Daniel Felipe Martínez (800), Mike Landa (800), Romain Bardet (800), Felix Grossschartner (600), Ion Izagirre (600), Carlos Rodríguez (400), Attila Valter (400), Giulio Ciccone (600), Wout Poels (600) and Vincenzo Nibali (400) are some of the top favourites.