The 42nd edition of the Vuelta Ciclista a la Región de Murcia Costa Cálida-Gran Premio Banco Sabadell took place last Friday, marked by the absence of the Murcian Alejandro Valverde “El Bala” who has not been able to say goodbye to his loyal fans, due to the number of positive cases in La Vuelta a la Comunidad Valenciana.
Starting in Fortuna and finishing in Cartagena, the race totalled 188 kilometres and three mountain passes (Cresta del Gallo, Collado Bermejo-Sierra Espuña and Alto del Cedacero) with Asier Etxeberria of the Euskaltel-Euskadi team winning the mountain classification after topping the first two.
147 cyclists from 21 teams from nine different countries took part. This year, in addition, seven teams from the UCI World Tour category took part, a higher number than in previous years. All the Spanish teams took part in the race: Euskaltel Euskadi, Burgos BH, Caja Rural, Kern Pharma and Manuela Fundación, as well as Movistar Team.
The winner of the Vuelta a Murcia 2022 has been the young Italian Alessandro Covi of UAE Team Emirates, with a time of 4:34:50 and getting this victory in the final sprint, followed by his teammate Matteo Trentin and closing the podium Matis Louvel of Team Arkéa-Samsic.