EVERYTHING ENDS UP TURNING OUT WELL. A difficult elbow injury Gonzalo Serrano sustained in March 2022 during the Brugge – De Panne classic could have perfectly ruined the Madrilian’s second season in Movistar Team colours. However, the three-month rehab and recovery process before coming back to racing -other than another surgery in October, to remove everything fixed to repair his injury- did not bring his morale down, and his work was crucial for the Telefónica-backed squad to secure its current WT spot. Above all results, two big performances: his podium finish in the Grand Prix de Wallonie, 3rd behind Van der Poel and Girmay at the Namur Citadel, and most importantly his overall victory in the Tour of Britain, beating on the decisive day no less than Tom Pidcock. Who can now deny he’s a world-class rider?

STEP BY STEP. The Caja Rural – Seguros RGA outfit supported Gonzalo through his first three years in the UCI ProTeam category, the Spaniard following a fine, solid line of progression. A consistent 2018 season led to his first good results in 2019 -8th overall in the Tour of Turkey; 6th at the tough Castillo finish in the Vuelta a Burgos- and, ultimately, his first pro win in 2020. He claimed stage two of the Vuelta a Andalucía by beating all fast finishers at a difficult slope in Iznájar, with a late attack he had already tried two weeks before at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana. That same year, he got a cap with the Spanish national team for the pro Euro Champs and also featured well at another uphill finish in La Vuelta -9th in Ourense-. In 2021, already wearing the Blue colours, Gonzalo won again in Andalucía, was 2nd atop the Castillo in the Vuelta a Burgos, too, 4th in the Nationals and finished 3rd to Van Aert and Hayter in the Tour of Britain.

BREAKTHROUGH AND TRIBUTE. With the UC San Sebastián de los Reyes, Gonzalo got his first big wins as a junior; at the Froiz team, he cut his teeth during his early amateur stage, a leap always difficult to take; and at the Escuela Ciclista Alcalá de Henares, led by the late Jesús Rodríguez Magro, he took the decisive steps to earn a spot at the pro peloton. He dominated most of the amateur calendar in his last two seasons, with several stagerace victories in 2016 and the overall win in the Spanish Racing Series in 2017, ahead of current team-mate Sergio Samitier. That was the decisive ticket to the pro peloton, a way to pay back the gamble Magro, a former member of the Abarca organisation, made for Gonzalo, and also to Sebastián, Serrano’s grandfather, the man who got him into bikes at age 6, who died just few weeks before the news of this Caja Rural signing were known.