When Paco Benítez received the invitation from Ángel Casero to recover the Volta the Comunitat Valenciana four years ago, it wasn't just anything.
He was making him, then, a participant in the legacy of almost ninety years of history. It was the Volta the Comunitat Valenciana, the dream of Fabio Regolf, the ideologist, back in 1929, of the first edition of the Valencian race.
A cult cyclist in the decade of the ten, Fabio created the Peña Ciclista Excursionista de Valencia from where he organized a couple of races, the Valencia-Castellón and return, along with the Valencia-Alcoy.
Two events that chiseled his desire for a stage tour that urdiera the main enclaves of the region, the three provinces of Levante.
He got in touch with a certain Blasco Ibáñez, from the newspaper Pueblo, and the two sewed the first edition of the race, the same one that this first week of February will fill the three provinces with good cycling to crown the successor of Ion Izagirre, the youngest of the Guipuzcoan saga that a year ago surpassed Alejandro Valverde and Peio Bilbao.
The home race
When Paco Benítez received that call, his home race was on the table. A cyclist with Vitalicio, formerly with Kelme, Paco left cycling in 2000.
"I will always remember that I fell in love with cycling at a stage of the Volta the Comunitat Valenciana in 1984. It finished in my town, Vall d' Uxó. It was a great day, they gave us a party at school and took us to see the race. That day Peio Ruiz Cabestany won, but the rider we all wanted to see was a certain Bernard Hinault, everyone was talking about him" recalls Paco.
Today he is the technical director of this race, his race, his home race.
And in his recent memory is fresh the experience of contributing to revive a competition that was in limbo between 2007 and 2016.
"It wasn't easy, the truth. Keep in mind that both Ángel and I were professionals, but neither of us had great experience organizing races, we started from scratch, we learned a lot and every year we improved things", says Paco, who says: "There are a thousand things to be aware of, but the worst thing is the uncertainty, this year the province of Alicante has been very punished by the storms and some planned road has vanished, literally".
From minute zero of this reprint, Gobik is a partner in the adventure. "We are very grateful for his confidence from the beginning, we can say that there is a relationship beyond the professional that goes beyond the personal".
The brand will provide the jerseys leader's jerseys, the yellow of a lifetime, youth, mountain and the combined.
The Volta the Comunitat Valenciana of 2020
Continuing with the story, we put the focus on the present, this edition that is already starting and that is full of good cyclists, many of them already regulars in the area: "It helps a lot that our region attracts so many professional teams. The Altea-Calpe axis is a pole of attraction for cyclists, I remember that in my time many of them came as a team, especially in Benicassim".
If we ask him for three names for the poster, we mark Alejandro Valverde "our world champion", Tom Dumoulin "debuting colors in Jumbo" and Philippe Gilbert "a legend".
So, the race will visit the three provinces in five days.
Three star moments: the discovery of Bernia is "our crown jewel, no doubt, it will surely be spectacular", the arrival in Cullera "will not have the hardness of Bernia, but it will also be to see the scenery with the sea in the background" and a classic, the final sprint under the city hall of Valencia, where the Estació del Nord provides the backdrop.
This will be the route of this Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana 2020. That edition of the 29th of last century left the city of Valencia to Villarreal to start a four-stage race to be won by Salvador Cardona, leader from start to finish.
Texts: JoanSeguidor's Notebook
