Garmin Trans Portugal
The Race in Underway
Agnelo Quelhas / 02.05.2010
The day dawned sunny in Bragança. By 7h:40m the athletes with bigger handicaps began nine days of adventure in the Transportugal GARMIN race.
Of the many nationalities represented, the majority are Portuguese and South Africans. There is also a strong representation from Belgium, a country where Transportugal is well known. However the victory of the day belonged to a country represented by a single athlete. We will talk about that later.
The exit from Braganza was as always, towards the mountainous Natural Park of Montesinho, a protected reserve in the interior north of the country. The area is extremely hard, with constant up and down ramps and some pretty difficult climbs. However, the spring presents itself full of life at this time of the year, which encourages and facilitates progress. The streams and rivers run full and the green fields populate the landscape with wild flowers in shades of purple, yellow and white. Riders feel like pedalling and pedalling all day and that's exactly what happened to the slower athletes, with the closing of the final control at 19h:07m.
After this the athletes rolled into the Natural Park of the Douro Internacional. One of the most beautiful and also more difficult areas is Bemposta, with a coble stone road of about 2 kms, that requires an extra effort from the participants.
Close to the end the descent to the Mazouco village opens our soul, with superb views of the Douro river and the air smelling of finish line, which is about 10 kms from here.
Luis Leão Pinto was the favourite to win the stage. This is an athlete with recognized capabilities in Portugal, national champion of 2009 and with numerous victories in his young career. However things did not go as expected. The surprise winner came from the Czech Republic and that was Milan Spolc. He came into the finish with a 30-minute advantage that his 51 years handicap gavee him at the start line, reaching the finish line in Freixo seven minutes ahead of the Portuguese national champion.
The Czech athlete was very fast throughout the race. However, in the last 20kms he lost about 11 minutes for Luis Pinto with a drop in the pace towards the finish. Luis Pinto arrived 7m:35s after the Czech. Tiago Silva was third at 28m:21s, Marco Almeida, who had problems with his front wheel, due to breakage of the rim, was 4th at 31m:08s and the 5th was the No.1 biker Ricardo Melo, more than 49 minutes after the Czech athlete.
The paths of stage 2 are waiting for the riders with 110 km and 2892m of vertical climbing. The first part contains an ex-libris of the race, the coble stone path of Alpajares. This is one of the most beautiful and wild areas of our country. It has both beauty and danger, especially the gorge of Ribeira do Mosteiro where high drop offs always threaten any little mistake made on this highly technical section. Many of athletes walk here, avoiding the risk of lose all the effort they put in preparing for this event.
After crossing the Douro river comes the long climb to the historical village of Castelo Rodrigo and Almeida highlands. Here things are no longer as before. Instead of going to Alfaiates, as in the previous seven editions, the race heads to the city of Guarda, approaching the Parque Natural da Serra da Estrela, which will be something to talk about in the 8th edition of Transportugal GARMIN. The stage ends in the Lusitania Parque Hotel on the suburbs of town.
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