Miguel Ángel “Superman” López (Movistar-Best PC), fought with wishes and against all those who thought that after turbulent months he could not give a brilliant performance in the 39th Tour of San Juan, however, this Sunday he lifted the crown after seven arduous and fought stages, in which many world stars of road cycling appeared.

Colombia thus completed its second title and fifth podium in the Tour of San Juan. This time “Supermán” López was escorted on the awards platform by the Italian Filippo Ganna, second, 30 seconds behind, and the Colombian Sergio Higuita, third, 44 seconds behind. The last Colombian victory dated back to 2019, on that occasion the winner was Winner Anacona.

López sealed the race in the fifth stage, the toughest, ending at a height of 2,600 meters. The other stages were decided by the minimum in the last meters. Four were resolved in a massive sprint, with victories for Bennett, Jakobsen, Gaviria and Welsford; in another, a Simmons misstep frustrated the sprinters. The last one, of barely 112 kilometres, also ended in a sprint with the second victory for Australian Sam Welsford (Team DSM).

Supermán López, who succeeded world champion Remco Evenepoel, winner in 2020, in the sanjuanina round, gave his impressions at the end of the race. “Thank God everything went very well, a victory that is priceless, we were always very calm. We had the whole race under control with the boys, we knew it was a sprint and we were very happy with the victory”.

The final stage was taken by Welsford in the San Juan Circuit, his second in Argentine territory, ahead of Dutchman Fabio Jakobsen (Soudal-Quick Step) and Italian Giacomo Nizzolo (Israel-Premier Tech).

The protagonists of the escape of the day in the seventh fraction were the Czech Mathias Vacek (Trek – Segafredo), the Portuguese Carlos Salgueiro (APHotels and Resorts – Tavira) and the Argentine Laureano Rosas (Gremios por el Deporte – Cutral Co), but entering at kilometer 14 they were neutralized by Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) and Quinn Simmons (Trek – Segafredo).

At the end, there was a spectacular finish encouraged by the world champion, who tried to surprise with a distant attack, but the two adventurers were captured by the peloton four kilometers from the finish, leaving everything to the group packaging.

The rest of the classifications were distributed as follows: INEOS – GRENADIERS dominated between the teams; the Italian Manuele Tarozzi kept the mountain jersey; the Argentine Gerardo Matias Tivani was the owner of the flying goals; while the American Matthew Riccitello was the monarch among those under 23 years of age.

Source: REvista Mundo Ciclístico y www.vueltaasanjuan.org