With the full results sheet we can see that stage 1's sprint was from a reduced bunch - only around 20 contesting it, which does make things a bit more interesting. Stage 2 saw César Sanabria, a 22yo espoir for Venezuela País del Futuro, hold off the bunch and take the win by 1", however as he came in in the second group on the first stage and was a minute down, Gómez keeps the race lead, and by coming 2nd in the field sprint behind Sanabria, extends his lead to 12" by the magic of bonus seconds. We also find that Team Cartagena, one of the four overseas teams, from the Caribbean port city in northern Colombia, had to DNS en masse - suspect travel related issues, Covid or otherwise, are at fault.
Stage 3 was won by another entry into the veterans' club, Miguel Ubeto. He's a somewhat strange story, a long-time veteran of the Venezuelan cycling scene who also frequently raced in the Caribbean and managed to somehow punch a ticket to get to Europe when Androni Giocattoli got their deal in place with the Venezuelan state for 2012, despite being already 35 years old and with several younger talents available. He then continued to mainly race in South America, but still got a contract with Lampre to make his World Tour level debut at 36, only to test for the then highly controversial GW501516 by April. The UCI then reduced his suspension for reasons unclear, and he has been plugging away back at home ever since, and is now 45 years young and still going strong, taking the win in a sprint ahead of stage 2 winner César Sanabria. There was a large crash in the sprint, and race leader Luís António Gómez was caught up in it - it looks like he did not go down but he was delayed as he is the last person in the péloton to finish on the race winner's time, with several others credited with it but coming in behind straggling riders afterward. However it has cut his lead to just 4" over a group of 12 riders, of whom Ubeto leads on countback.
The parcours is, I'm afraid, even worse than I thought, with the federation having had to struggle with lockdown limitations and restrictions for race locations minimising contact. Today's stage is a rolling out-and-back along a highway section just outside Chivacoa, the Araure stage on Thursday is similar on the bypass, Friday's stage to Cagua is the most significant one, but the toughest climb of the race, La Entrada, is over 75km from home (and isn't that tough anyway). Saturday's tri-star circuit in Valencia looks to be quite bumpy so although it is more out-and-backing, at least the roads look bumpy enough to provide a bit of a platform for attacking and the circuit is short enough to make them flow into each other a bit better and with more corners it might be easier for attackers to get out of sight of the chasers.
Stage 3 was won by another entry into the veterans' club, Miguel Ubeto. He's a somewhat strange story, a long-time veteran of the Venezuelan cycling scene who also frequently raced in the Caribbean and managed to somehow punch a ticket to get to Europe when Androni Giocattoli got their deal in place with the Venezuelan state for 2012, despite being already 35 years old and with several younger talents available. He then continued to mainly race in South America, but still got a contract with Lampre to make his World Tour level debut at 36, only to test for the then highly controversial GW501516 by April. The UCI then reduced his suspension for reasons unclear, and he has been plugging away back at home ever since, and is now 45 years young and still going strong, taking the win in a sprint ahead of stage 2 winner César Sanabria. There was a large crash in the sprint, and race leader Luís António Gómez was caught up in it - it looks like he did not go down but he was delayed as he is the last person in the péloton to finish on the race winner's time, with several others credited with it but coming in behind straggling riders afterward. However it has cut his lead to just 4" over a group of 12 riders, of whom Ubeto leads on countback.
The parcours is, I'm afraid, even worse than I thought, with the federation having had to struggle with lockdown limitations and restrictions for race locations minimising contact. Today's stage is a rolling out-and-back along a highway section just outside Chivacoa, the Araure stage on Thursday is similar on the bypass, Friday's stage to Cagua is the most significant one, but the toughest climb of the race, La Entrada, is over 75km from home (and isn't that tough anyway). Saturday's tri-star circuit in Valencia looks to be quite bumpy so although it is more out-and-backing, at least the roads look bumpy enough to provide a bit of a platform for attacking and the circuit is short enough to make them flow into each other a bit better and with more corners it might be easier for attackers to get out of sight of the chasers.
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