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The eleventh season of existence of the U19 team, which began with the great novelty of the arrival of Gorka Beloki and Isaac Cantón in the technical area after many years with Guillermo Gutiérrez and Félix García Casas at the head of the team, The team started with a roster of fifteen riders, nine of them second-year riders, and a wide-ranging calendar that included new competitions such as the Volta a Girona, the Vuelta a Pamplona, the Gipuzkoa Itzulia and several one-day races on the Basque and Castilian-Leonese calendars. The French Tour de l’Ain, a regular event in previous seasons, was left out this season, as was the case with the prestigious Vuelta a Valladolid due to last-minute logistical issues. 

During the spring, the important reinforcement of the Galician Sergio Calvo, a second year youth rider from Rías Baixas, took place, and at the same time the departure of Daniel Díaz from Madrid to Ciudad de Talavera also took place. Gerard Cano from Girona opened the season’s list of winners for all the structures with an emotional triumph in Berriatua, a race that counted towards the Kopa Bizkaia, and both Sergio Calvo and Miguel Domínguez from Salamanca won the final overall races of the Volta a Girona and the Vuelta a la Montaña Central.

In the Asturian race Domínguez headed an all-blue podium, completed by the second position of the Hungarian Balint Feldhoffer and the third of Calvo: quite possibly the highest point of the campaign, also the most emotional because of the recent death of Arturo Grávalos, member of the EOLO-KOMETA Cycling Team, after a long illness. His loss, as well as that of the Guardia Civil officer Dámaso Guillén (killed by a delinquent after being run over by his vehicle when he was watching over the security of the youth Trofeo Santiago y Santa Ana) were remembered by the organisation. 

Iván Polo from Valladolid scored a beautiful victory in the Gran Premio El Baruco, in Cantabria, with a formidable attack in the final part and the Cantabrian Mario Gómez, winner of the Trofeo Fundación Sodupe de la Copa Bizkaia and the Clásica Virgen de Camino de Molledo, were other riders who were most exposed to the media spotlight, without forgetting the intense end of the campaign of the Colombian Samuel Flórez in the Basque and Navarrese calendars. 

Calvo, who won the Galician regional title both on the road and against the clock, and who rode a beautiful ride in the last race of the Spanish Cup, would end up being one of the four riders promoted to the U23 team for 2024. Manuel Sanroma, Gerard Cano and Balint Feldhoffer were the other three.

Riders

Sergio Calvo
Gerard Cano
Iker Díaz
Daniel Díaz
MIguel Domínguez
Balint Feldhoffer
Samuel Flórez
Héctor García
Mario Gómez
Pablo Leno
Iván Loaisa
Álvar Martín
Iván Polo
Balaz Pollner
Hugo Pradas
Manuel Sanroma

Fifteen riders made up in 2022 the tenth sporting project of the Alberto Contador Foundation in the youth category, a category in which many changes are being experienced and that this year will finally recover some normality after the COVID-19 and its aftermath in the two previous years. This year, with eleven new faces, including six first-year riders, the team led by Guillermo Gutiérrez and Félix García Casas has strengthened its collaboration with Hungarian cycling by incorporating two of the young talents of Magyar cycling: Balazs Pollner and Ballint Feldhoffer.  The first victories of the season will come in the traditional team time trial of the Trofeo Víctor Cabedo and through Joan Cadena in the Gran Premio Ayuntamiento Valdefresno. Cantabrian David Puente, in a Challenge Montaña Central in which he finally finished third, Joel Díaz from Barcelona in the Memorial Emilio Fernández or Pedro García from Murcia, in the Gran Premio de Moixent, will achieve other of the best results of the team. Catalan Nil Aguilera will have a great performance in the Vuelta al Besaya, with a victory in the last stage and second place in a final overall dominated by Portuguese Antonio Morgado, one of the cyclists of the season. Aguilera will also be one of the most outstanding cyclists in other international races in which the team competes, such as the Volta al Concelho de Loulé (Portugal) or the Ain Valromey Tour (France). The 2022 course will close with the jump of the climber Álex García to the U23 team and with the completion of two important changes: Félix García Casas leaves the Contador Foundation at the end of the summer to focus on the national track cycling team and the Cantabrian Guillermo Gutiérrez also leaves the sports management. The Basque Gorka Beloki, with experience in the sports structures of the Foundation, is appointed new director of the junior team.

Riders

Manuel Sanroma
Bálint Feldhoffer
Joan Cadena
César Pérez
Héctor García
Iván Polo
Balázs Pollner
Nil Aguilera
Álex García
Alem Herráiz
Pedro García
Gergo Magyar
David Puente
Lucas Guillermo
Joel Díaz

The U19 category was not spared from the postponements and suspensions that occurred in the first months of the year as a result of COVID-19, a circumstance that altered the development of the cycling season until the end of spring. The Catalan Joel Díaz, the Aragonese Lucas Guillermo, the Cantabrian David Puente, the Balearic Marc Terrasa and the Hungarian Gergo Magyar were the five cyclists who, chosen in the Selection Campus, completed a squad of twelve riders of the ninth junior project of the Foundation. Antonio González from Soria (who had already finished third in the Challenge Montaña Central and eighth in the prestigious Vuelta al Besaya) and the Valencian Pablo García achieved brilliant victories in the final overalls of the Vuelta Ciclista a Talavera and the Trofeo Víctor Cabedo. Samuel de Pablo, David Gimeno and Marc Terrasa achieved outstanding victories in road races, regional championships and track competitions. In the Copa de España (Spanish Cup), Terrasa was in the fight for the title until the final race, in which he could not take part due to commitments with the Spanish track national team, and along the way he won the race in San Sebastián de los Reyes or the second place in the Cursa del Llobregat; in the Circuito del Guadiana, Miguel Ramos also came close to victory. As part of the collaboration that the Fundación Contador maintains with the Hungarian Cycling Federation, the two Magyar talents Bence Mészáros and Zétény Szijártó competed with the team in the return to the roads of the Bizkaiko Itzulia. With a view to 2022, the sports management sponsored the promotion of Antonio González and Marc Terrasa to the U23 team of the Contador Foundation, while the jump in category in other structures came for cyclists such as Pablo García, Miguel Ramos or Samuel de Pablo.

Riders

Gergo Magyar
Samuel de Pablo
Miguel Angel Molina
Miguel Ramos
David Puente
Lucas Guillermo
Joel Díaz
Pablo García
Antonio González
David Gimeno
Marius Knight-Chaneac
Marc Terrasa

If the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was felt in the normal course of the entire cycling season, the blow was much greater on formative and grassroots cycling. Much of their schedule was postponed or cancelled until a better time even when circumstances and authorities allowed a return to racing. Even the alternative calendar was not definitive. Nevertheless, in an atypical campaign, the junior structure of the Contador Foundation had a very outstanding season, which began in Don Benito with the Circuito del Guadiana, and continued with the Trofeo Cabedo. Then came the confinement, the obligation to stay at home and the alternation between domestic training and curricular obligations. With no races on the horizon and no concrete prospects, all the riders showed their maturity by managing a period as strange as it was unknown, always intense in the emotional sense. In July the competition would return with the Vuelta al Besaya, a race in which the structure directed by Guillermo Gutiérrez put on a great performance and revolutionised the last stage with victories in the final general for Arnau Gilabert. Interesting performances of the team took place in the Vuelta a Talavera, in the novel Challenge La Subbética or in the Cursa del Llobregat that would end up closing the Spanish Cup. Finally José Luis Medina, Alejandro Luna and Arnau Gilabert were promoted to the U23 team of the Foundation, with Francesc Bennassar or Pedro Beneit making the jump to other structures.

Riders

Pablo García
Arnau Gilabert
Samuel de Pablo
Miguel Ángel Molina
Antonio González
David Gimeno
Miguel Ramos
Marius Knight-Chaneac
Pedro Beneit
José Luis Medina
Francesc Bennassar
David Quevedo
Alejandro Luna

Many and very good riders have passed through the discipline of the youth team since its birth, but the 2019 squad will have its own space not only within the collective imagination of the Alberto Contador Foundation, but in the cycling sport itself at the national level. The 2019 campaign not only maintained the great harvest of results, but also had a great group that performed at a high level throughout the year. Carlos Rodríguez, Raúl García, Javier Serrano, Fernando Tercero, Gerard Bofill and Juanjo Rosal were the foundation of more than thirty victories.

The victories arrived soon, already in the Circuit of the Guadiana of the category, and were prolonged through the representation of several cyclists in the Spanish youthful selection in the Volta a Valencia elite and sub23. I shine from February until September. The Spanish Cup, with partial victories in five of his six races, victory in his definitive general and dominion of the final podium, or an outstanding Vuelta al Besaya in which the victory in the general final was specified and a formidable group performance unfolded they condense the sports evolution of the campaign of the riders directed by Guillermo Gutiérrez and prepared by Jorge Ramos. Bizkaiko Itzulia, Gipuzkoa Klasika or the Vuelta a la Ribera del Duero were other races in which important victories were achieved.

The successes have also extended to other races, especially in stages, and have also reached beyond the Spanish borders, with the Tour de Gironde at the head. Once again the Foundation was host to foreign cyclists, with Dylan Van der Borre taking part in the Bizkaiko Itzulia and his compatriots Nils Verheyen and Yaaron Logghe competing in the Vuelta a Valladolid. Gerard Bofill and Pablo Gutiérrez also had the opportunity to race the Aubel-Thimister-Stavelot. The culmination of such an outstanding year came with the jump directly to the World Tour by Carlos Rodríguez or the promotion to the continental category by Javi Serrano.

Riders

Manuel Jesús Carrellán
Pedro Beneit
David Quevedo
Alejandro Luna
Pablo Gutiérrez
Raúl García
Gerard Bofill
Francesc Bennassar
Fernando Tercero
José Luis Medina
Carlos Rodríguez
Javi Serrano
Juan José Rosal

The sixth season of the junior structure of the Fundación Alberto Contador has been the most successful not only in terms of triumphs, with the achievement of the desired first victory in the final overall of the prestigious Vuelta al Besaya, but also in terms of the collective. A very complete campaign where the Polartec-Kometa junior transferred his firm team spirit to the roads with very good group performances, concreted with several successes in general by teams (Spanish Cup, Vuelta al Besaya, Vuelta a Valladolid, Clasica Premundial de Beasain, Vuelta a Talavera). A great year that, in addition, had its reflection in the attentions towards the riders so much of different autonomic federative estates as especially of the own Spanish selection of the category. In this sense, Carlos Rodríguez and Álex Martín were frequently summoned.

Precisely the andalusian Rodríguez, his sixth in a Paris-Roubaix, and the Catalan Martín, who has made the jump to the U23 category of the Kometa Cycling Team command held by the Foundation in the amateur field, have been two of the most outstanding names from a media perspective, always supported by the not always visible work of their colleagues, with Manu Garrido or the Portuguese Daniel Lopes at the front. Rodríguez won the Spanish Cup and the Bizkaiko Bira; Martín did the same in the Vuelta al Besaya or the Tour of l´Ain in France. The Cantabrian appointment, with Martin and Rodriguez in the fight for the final victory and a common work in pursuit of a structural objective, synthesizes the spirit of the year.

Within the framework of their growing work of exchange with foreign structures, again in 2018 Belgian, several foreign runners competed with the team in some tests of the Spanish calendar. This was the case of the Belgians Nathan Decuypere, Davide Bomboi, Gilles Vercruysse and Alex Vandenbulcke, or the British Harrison Wood.

Riders

Alejandro Piquero
Alex Martín
Carlos Rodríguez
Daniel Lopes
Javi Serrano
Joan Marc Campos
Iván Oliver
Juan José Rosal
Luis Miguel Mendoza
Manuel Garrido
Manuel Jesús Carrellán
Miguel Patiño

This season marks the fifth year of the founding of the Junior Team and the fourth of the Under-23 Team and the Pinto Cycling School. The Alberto Contador Foundation has already reached a point of maturity that will allow us to take on new challenges in the next future, thanks also to the commitment of our sponsors, especially Polartec, who has assumed the responsibility of being the main sponsor of the teams for the two next seasons. Together with Polartec this year have joined our project Skoda and Kometa as main suppliers, while continue Rotor and Etixx one more season, completing the first line of suppliers. It is also worth mentioning the arrival of partners such as TM Real Estate Group, KASK, KOO, HP Sports Science and Gaerne.

The Polartec teams of the Alberto Contador Foundation face a season in which they intend to go even deeper into the internationalization of the project, both with new incorporations of different nationalities and with a calendar that aims to lead our cyclists to compete for a growing number of races of the European calendar with the aim of facilitating to the maximum its ascent to the maximum category. The Polartec Junior team has thirteen riders this year and for the first time two of them are not Spanish. Belgian Axel Clausse and Czech Jakub Pilecek are the first sign of the internationalization of the team directed by Félix García Casas and Guillermo Gutiérrez.

Riders

Axel Clausse
Carlos García
David Cabezas
Domingo Estrada
Felipe Pavón
Hugo Sampedro
Joan Marti Bennassar
Jakub Pilecek
Marc Brustenga
Maties Gornals
Pol Hernández
Rodrigo Cascajo
Sergio García

The arrival of RH+ and Polartec as title sponsors of the Alberto Contador Foundation has marked a milestone in the evolution of this project, also guaranteeing its continuity in the medium term. In the same way, the arrival of a new bicycle brand, Look, has been a great contribution for next seasons, guaranteeing a first quality material to all riders.

In its fourth season, the performance of the RH+/Polartec Junior team has been excellent and it has continued as one of the referents of the Spanish and European peloton, where significant victories have been achieved, such as the team time trial of the Tour des Portes du Pays D’Othe in France, and the Spanish Cup by teams.

The team has continued its training by going to both the best events on the Spanish and European calendar, with the aim of reaching the highest possible level of sport. The Campus of Selection of new riders, in which each year the new members of the team are chosen, has made Zaragoza a place of appointment for the best cadets of the country.

Riders

Alejandro Ropero
Carlos Álvarez
Carlos García
Claudio Clavijo
Cristian Fernández
Daniel Rodríguez
David Cabezas
Hugo Sampedro
Iñigo González
Joan Marti Bennassar
José Antonio García
Marc Brustenga
Tomeu Gelabert

By 2015 the team has become one of the references in Spain and continues with the same line of work, highlighting the importance of the group and competing for victory in each race. The team continues to show as one of the calendar’s dominators.

It revalidates the triumph in the Vuelta al Besaya, where Juan Pedro Lopez takes 2nd place; at Itzulia came the team’s and individual victories with Tomeu Gelabert. The same result is achieved in the Cabedo Trophy, with the team’s and individual victories thanks to Guillem Cassú. Other milestones are the victories of Guillem Cassú in Torhout (Belgium) and the Spanish Cup by Teams.

Riders

Alejandro Martínez
Antonio Barbero
Borja Altur
Claudio Clavijo
Daniel Rodríguez
Eduardo Pérez-Landaluce
Guillem Cassu
Javier Hernández
Joan Bou
José Antonio García
José Felix Parra
Juan Pedro López
Sergio Hernández
Tomeu Gelabert

The year 2014 is crucial in the history of Alberto Contador Foundation since the U23 team is launched for giving continuity to Junior’s riders, which in turn are secured as one of the references teams in Spain.

Victories by teams are achieved in almost all of the tours where the junior team participates. The team revalidates the triumph in the Vuelta al Besaya, where Miguel Angel Ballesteros and Diego Pablo Sevilla also reach the podium, completing a remarkable performance of the whole team. Fernando Barceló take victories in Trofeo Cabedo and Cantabrian Circuit, and the team acts as one the great ruler in stage races.

Another victory in Belgium was achieved by Angel Fuentes, where the team debuted in the Tour of Flanders of this category. The team wins the Cup of Spain and Miguel Angel Ballesteros finishes second.

Riders

Ángel Fuentes
Antonio Barbero
Diego Pablo Sevilla
Fernando Barceló
Francisco Pérez
Guillem Cassú
Javier Hernández
Joan Bou
José Antonio García
José Felix Parra
Juanjo Pazos
Miguel Ángel Alcaide
Miguel Ángel Ballesteros
Sergio Hernández

It is the year of birth of the cycling club, which begins in the Junior category with great enthusiasm and eager to be able to quickly know the category and achieve a good level in the Spanish squad.

In this year team’s victories very importants are already achieved, such as the Tour of Besaya, where Alvaro Cuadros also managed a single victory on the summit of Peña Cabarga; or Bizkaiko Itzlulia where the team struggled for overall victory all the way with Enric Mas.

Iosu Angoitia achieved the first victory of the team out of Spain by winning Izegem (Belgium), confirming riders’ high quality. But undoubtedly the best result came by the hands of Fernando Barceló, to claim victory in the Cup of Spain, acompanied on the final podium by Diego Pablo Sevilla.

Riders

Álvaro Cuadros
Cristian Torres
Diego Pablo Sevilla
Enric Mas
Fernando Barceló
Francisco Pérez
Iosu Angoitia
Juanjo Pazos
Miguel Ángel Alcaide
Miguel Ángel Ballesteros
Óscar Linares
Pablo Noriega
Sergio Fernández
Victor Aguado

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