No, you're right, that's on. It used to clash with Romandie and so as nothing had been announced I assumed it died, but on April 25th they confirmed some teams and this follows from the previous announcements, so we can see Asturias as follows:
- 2 stages, May 11-12
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Stage 1: Oviedo - Pola de Lena. This will be a tough mountain stage, including the East side of Alto de la Cobertoria which is
BRUTAL, however it's about halfway through the stage so while it will shell riders it won't settle the race. We then have some long valley roads before Tenebredo, and then the riders will head to La Vega, and then climb via El Cordal to Cuchu Puercu, which is unfortunately the easy side of this awesome an tragically underused climb. Most maps of Cuchu Puercu you see are from Pola de Lena, climbing the tougher side of Cordal then ascending to Cuchu Puercu; this is tough enough, but the really brutal side is the same for most of its length as Cobertoria East, then you turn right away from Cobertoria and continue to ascend steep slopes on narrow roads. This of course means, the riders in Asturias have to descend this, which means a treacherous, terribly steep descent into the finish, which could be very dramatic.
- Stage 2 is from Breño to the Alto del Naranco, by the now traditional route including the Circuito Chechu Rubiera and El Violeo before the summit finish.
- Teams will be Movistar, Euskaltel, Caja Rural and Novo Nordisk from the top 2 divisions, with the rest of the lineup made up of Euskadi, Burgos-BH, Start Trigón de Paraguay, Louletano-Dunas Douradas, OFM-Quinta da Lixa, Radio Popular-Onda, Lokosphinx, 472 Colombia es Pasión, and national teams from Spain and Argentina.
Again, a bit of a letdown that the Portuguese teams are coming but no Efapel, who are the strongest of them on paper.