In a week, a herd of 151 men will gather at the foot of the cathedral of burgs of eight centuries old to start the highest prestigious and significant edition of the Spanish-level race.
The Vuelta a Burgos will be the first UCI ProSeries level race to be played globally since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The five-day race is generally considered to be the first major control for foreign careers, as the game takes into account situations created through the so-called “new normal”.
In the absence of a time trial, the arrival at the classic Burgos summit on 1 August at the Neila Lagoons is most likely to be the overall classification among contenders yet to show as Remco Evenepoel (Deceuninck-QuickStep), Richard Carapaz (Team Ineos) and Mikel Landa (Bahrain-McLaren).
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While the interest in cyclists more fit at the beginning of the new racing schedule will be very high given the exceptional quality of the composition, the main race in Burgos will be elsewhere, as explained by race director Marcos Moral to Cyclingnews.
“It’s a very confusing year. We organized the technical component of the occasion before the outbreak began. What has kept me awake at night since then has to do with career protection, fitness and protection rules, etc.,” he explains.
“Existing cases make this Lap exceptional and special at all levels. It would be a normal Lap” “that coincided with the Olympics, since all and every 4 years, and everything was planned. But then Mr Covid-19 came along and “aligned us all against the wall” [as the Spaniards say when a crisis breaks out]. And we had to start over. We weren’t talking about racing anymore, it was a protection issue.”
The list of precautions to be taken during the Vuelta a Burgos is remarkable and includes everything from restrictions on the movement of the media and the general public, exceptional precautions and protocols of fitness for runners, groups and race officers, to barriers and other career infrastructure. are disinfected.
Following meetings between fitness authorities, government officials, security forces and race organizers, a 134-page document describing all the measures to be followed was published, while other fitness groups for officials and aid workers were introduced, adding a special COVID-19 unit. .
All runners, media and organizers must return a negative COVID-19 PCR check before they can attend the event. An unprecedented assembly with team doctors and career medical officers will also take place on the eve of the event.
So far, the huge preparatory cades of the stages have gone well, having been selected the race as an example of “safe sports test” through the Spanish Sports Council.
“It’s anything to us an honor,” Moral says proudly.
The ultimate gentle green, the maximum authorization of the government for the race to continue, will logically be given much closer to the start time of the race, depending on the existing fitness scenario in Spain in general and Burgos in particular.
“We have created a particular operating organization for the total factor of precautions and fitness regulations,” Moral says.
“He has five doctors, two of whom paint on the front line of the COVID-19 pandemic in intensive care in hospitals, as well as an epidemiologist guilty of generating government reports on the pandemic in Burgos. They know the subject very well in terms of protocols, etc., even if the pandemic is unpredictable and invisible and follows its own rules.
As for the much-feared “second wave” of the pandemic in Spain, on 21 July, after the end of the confinement precisely a month ago, 201 “epidemics” were recorded in the country, with an “epidemic” that can barely be compensated. just 3 similar cases. The country supports an accumulation of cases, at a rate of around 700 per day.
While the eastern regions of Catalonia and Aragon were the hardest hit in the post-patronage period, Burgos itself has been one of the least affected areas in terms of recorded cases, with 3 outbreaks last week and a total of 19 cases. beyond seven days.
In Spanish sport, the dramatic maximum case similar to COVID-10 to date occurred this week, when a moment of the department’s football team, Fuenlabrada, recorded more than a dozen cases among its players. One of the last matches in the league had to be suspended accordingly, meaning that another team, Deportivo La Corua, was automatically relegated to 3rd place.
Cycling, so far, has emerged unscathed in terms of cases, and his first post-pandemic amateur race last week, the Return to Zamora, ran smoothly.
However, as Moral says, precautions and regulations remain more than necessary.
“We’re where the government says the cases are, there were fewer than 20 cases consistent with 100,000 inhabitants in Burgos last week. It’s very low,” Moral says.
“But we know that everyone, surely, in global cycling is observing what we do and how our fitness protocols work. We are in direct contact with the ICU and transmit as many data and knowledge as we can to your knowledge bases for your long-standing Reference. And we also paint together with the groups and organizers of the Vuelta a España, which take us a lot”.
Despite these efforts, there is a possibility, or not, that the Vuelta a Burgos will still be suspended at the last minute due to the progression of the pandemic.
When asked what his idea of this perspective was, Moral said, “I have each and every hope that the race will take place, so we are running in it. And if there’s an epidemic and the fitness government thinks the race just doesn’t happen, it would do us a lot of damage.
“However, we have a very sensible priority, namely that the fitness of the public and the fitness of the runners and the fitness of the entire organization of the race and the media come first.”
For now, a week later, the Vuelta a Burgos begins.
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