Rain marked the start of a race that brought together more than 175 cyclists from around the world.
This Sunday morning, the Les Franqueses Cycling Union organized a new edition of the KH7 Junior Grand Prix. Les Franqueses, European Sports Village 2024. A road cycling event that gathered over 175 cyclists from Catalonia and the rest of the country, along with a significant international representation, including cyclists from France, Belgium, and Kazakhstan. This year, the race was included in the UCI international calendar.
Rain played a prominent role during the initial stages of the day, forcing a change in the starting point to the Town Hall square. At 9 a.m., Toni Serra, the president of the Les Franqueses Cycling Union, flagged off the race, and the large group headed towards Corró d’Amunt, navigating the roadworks on the Cànoves-Bv5151 road, to complete 5 laps on a 27-kilometer circuit. The pack arrived together at Cànoves and Samalús on the first lap, but action began in the second lap.
A group of 9 cyclists broke away at the beginning of the second lap, leading the race with time differences ranging between 30 seconds and a minute. This breakaway group stayed together almost until the end, but in the last lap, it fragmented, leaving the victory options between two cyclists, Catalan Adrià Pericas and Valencian Héctor Álvarez. A neck-and-neck battle that persisted until the final meters.
Pericas was the fastest at the Franqueses promenade, where the finish line was relocated due to rain and the danger of slipping in the Town Hall square area. Adrià Pericas, from the Purito-Tadesan-Nuria team, crossed the finish line with a time of 3 hours, 36 minutes, and 8 seconds, just 6 seconds ahead of Héctor Álvarez from Lucta-Granja Rinya, who finished second. The podium was completed by Marcos Freire from the Bathco team, and son of former professional cyclist Oscar Freire, finishing third with a time of 3 hours, 37 minutes, and 10 seconds.
The winning team, Purito-Tadesan-Nuria, secured the team victory, while Gerard Mora from Tot net-Terrassa won the mountain prize and intermediate sprints. A day that featured the participation of Abraham Olano as the selector for Guipúscoa and the presence of professional cyclist Andrey Amador from the EF Education-EasyPost team.
