Male Team 22 Jan
Clàssica Comunitat Valenciana 1969
190 Kilometers
The race will be broadcast live at the YouTube channel of Sportpublic, at 14.45 CET.
The Movistar Team makes its debut in 2023 at a Spanish race which carried on in 2021 with the legacy of the defunct Trofeo Luig Puig, an event which the Blues couldn’t compete at because of its previous UCI category (it’s a 1.1 race this time, thus open to WorldTour squads; before that, it was 1.2, only for ProTeams and Continental teams). It’s otherwise a race suited for the sprinters, which now acts as the fully-fledged opener of the European season.
The 190km route links the two cities which alternative as start and finish of the race every year: Valencia and La Nucía. The route is lumpy, with the GPMs of Barxeta and Barx early on plus the more demanding Bixauca (Cat-2; 17km in length) with 23 kilometers to go. Despite that and an uphill finish, a group sprint is expected in the Alicante province.