Subida al Naranco to be integrated into Vuelta a Asturias
Germany isn’t the only country seeing a decrease in its racing schedule. Both Italy and Spain lost stage races over the past two days. In Italy, the Brixia Tour announced that it won’t take place in 2011, and yesterday, the Asturian one day classic, the Subida al Naranco, announced its demise, at least for this season.
The difficult Subida al Naranco won’t disappear entirely though. The race, run for the first time in 1947 and won last year by Santiago Perez, cited a budget shortfall as its reason for not running in 2011, but instead of falling off the calendar entirely, it will become a part of the Vuelta a Asturias. The Subida al Naranco had previously come on the heels of the Tour of Asturias, but this year, the Tour of Asturias will start a day later, April 28th, and finish on the day that originally was slated for the Subida al Naranco, May 2nd.
In effect, the Subida al Naranco will still happen. It’s just now the fifth, final, and likely deciding stage of the Vuelta a Asturias. It will undoubtedly be a thrilling end to an always difficult race. Just the list of former winners of the one day classic goes a long way to detailing the race’s stature as a climber’s race: Perez, Romain Sicard, Xavier Tondo, Koldo Gil, Fortunato Baliani, Rinaldo Nocentini, Iban Mayo, Leonardo Piepoli.
Stage 1: Oviedo – Gijon
Stage 2a: Gijon – Aviles
Stage 2b: Piedras Blancas
Stage 3: Luarca – Santuario del Acebo
Stage 4: Cafe Toscaf – Oviedo
Stage 5: Subida al Naranco: Oviedo – Alto del Naranco
For the Subida al Naranco, it has to be considered a wise way to endure its hopefully only one year in race purgatory. Finding a place within the Vuelta a Asturias could be a good way to ensure that it doesn’t disappear entirely.
In Italy, the news isn’t as good as in Spain, considering that it’s all bad news. The Brixia Tour will exit the racing calendar entirely due to what was cited by Tuttobiciweb as serious administrative failures.
The race has occupied a solid spot on the calendar each year for ten years, often serving as a tough stage race for riders that didn’t race the Tour de France and preparing for the late summer rigors ahead. The eleventh edition of the race previously won by the likes of Cadel Evans, Igor Astarloa, Danilo Di Luca, Emanuele Sella, and Davide Rebellin twice, will have to wait at least a one season before it can run its eleventh edition.
Last year, Colnago’s Domenico Pozzovivo dominated the proceedings and took the overall victory by almost two minutes over Morris Possoni (1:50) and over two and a half minutes on Garmin’s Daniel Martin. Pozzovivo won both mountain stages, while ISD-Neri took the team time trial, and Christopher Sutton and Roberto Ferrari split the sprint finishes.