The Vuelta will ride on San Mamés grass
The Vuelta will ride on San Mamés grass
The best cyclists in the world will pass through the inside of the red-and-white stadium at the start of the 13th stage of the race.
San Mamés and the Athletic Club will once again share the passion of the red-and-white fans for cycling and will host the start of the 13th stage of Vuelta 19 on 6 September, which will end at the Los Machucos stop, Vaca Pasiega Monument. The day is expected to be spectacular as the cyclists will not only start from the access esplanade to the stadium, but they will also surround the playing field during the neutralised route.
Fans will be able to see their idols up close in the vicinity of San Mamés, thus repeating the experience already lived in the 2017 Vuelta al País Vasco (Basque Country). Afterwards, the squad will enter the stadium through the stadium parking lot and enter the field of play, to which it will give a lap following the racing car and accompanied by two technical assistance motorcycles. The cyclists will leave through the door of the San Mamés car park and will return to the neutralised route through different streets of the Biscayan capital until they take the N-634 towards Sodupe to finish in the Cantabrian port of Los Machucos (special category) after 167 kilometres of route.
The Vuelta once again has the support of Bilbao City Council, a city committed to sport in general and to cycling in particular, which has hosted the Vuelta (start or finishing line) a total of 74 times, thus reaffirming the commitment of the Basque fans to this competition.
A historical relationship
The relationship between San Mamés and the Athletic Club and the world of cycling has been close for almost a century. In the 1920s, the red-and-white entity had its own cycling section, in which runners of the prestige as Federico Ezquerra wore the white jersey with the red stripe that identified the section for five years. The red-and-white club was also one of the driving forces behind the Vuelta al País Vasco. For its part, the San Mamés stadium was the luxurious stage in which two stages of the Vuelta Ciclista a España concluded. It was in 1960, with partial triumph of the final winner of that edition, Franz de Mulder; and in 1962, in a stage that also put an end to a Vuelta in which the German Rudi Altig won.