The Cycling Tour will start again from Barcelona 60 years later

It was 1962 when the Vuelta Ciclista a España started from Barcelona. This has been the only time it has done so since. The Basque Antón Barrutia was the winner of that first stage, with a route of 90 kilometers and a start and finish in the Catalan capital. More than 60 years later, the competition will once again choose the city as its starting point, where it has not made a stop since 2012, an edition in which the ninth stage started from Andorra and ended in Montjuïc.

The bicycles will not take their first pedal strokes in Barcelona this summer, which will have Utrecht (Netherlands) as the start of this edition, and we will have to wait until 2023 to see them pass. The organization of La Vuelta and the Barcelona City Council have to finish defining what that starting gun will be like, in which they will seek to offer the best sports spectacle, as well as showcase some of the most emblematic points of the city. The Sports Councilor, David Escudé, has announced that work is being done so that the competition "is experienced throughout the city", both in its neighborhoods and in its main attractions. The Catalan capital will also be the setting for the official spot of the competition and the presentation of the route and the participating teams.

At a technical level, as explained by the general director of the Vuelta a España, Javier Guillén, the first stage will be a team time trial that will set a route that allows "to make the most of the beauty of Barcelona". If for the last stage finish we have to go back to 2012, for the last time trial in the city, also in Montjuïc, we have to go back to 1978, with the victory of the Frenchman Bernard Hinault, who ended up winning that year's competition. For the second stage in Barcelona, Guillén has indicated that it will have its finish line in the city, with "a spectacular arrival". Beyond these small brushstrokes, the complete route will be known at the end of this year or the beginning of next.

The first stage of La Vuelta 2023 will be a team time trial that will set a route that allows "to make the most of the beauty of Barcelona"

It is even more relevant if one takes into account, as highlighted by the first deputy mayor, Jaume Collboni, that Barcelona has not been chosen as the venue for major events of this type for almost a decade. For Collboni, events such as the Cycling Tour allow positioning oneself before a quality tourist, interested in sports, who, moreover, comes from Central European countries, markets that spend more during their holidays. Likewise, the event will mobilize some 2,500 to 3,000 people in the city during the week in which the first stage will last.

"We work tirelessly to once again have national and international events, also in the sports field," Collboni stressed, who assured that this vocation of wanting to be back on the sports map will translate into more announcements like Monday's in the coming months. Without specifying which ones, Collboni advanced that the candidacies on which the City Council is working are consistent with Barcelona's sporting trajectory, with tradition in disciplines such as cycling.