Arnau Gilabert

Practising skiing and snow sports during her childhood, an activity she used to do with her sister Ariana, the outings of her father, Jordi, by bicycle always aroused a lot of curiosity in both of them. One year, due to circumstances, the activities of the Club Ski Puigmal could not be carried out due to lack of snow and Ariana began to accompany her father on his routes. On one occasion, the young Gilabert was able to accompany them, as the surroundings of the town where he lives in Folgueroles are a paradise for the practice of this sport. “And I liked it more and more,” he recalls. The two Gilabert Vilaplana brothers then began to overcome their father’s opposition to let them compete in the world of cycling. Dad Gilabert, however, with his experience in this field, considered the competition too demanding. Jordi Gilabert became a professional cyclist, competing for Santa Clara for several seasons in the mid-1990s. But the insistence of his sons ended up achieving the goal they were looking for and both began to participate, at first more in dribs and drabs, in some road cycling, track, mountain bike and even cyclo-cross events. Both, little by little, have ended up focusing on the road. Ariana Gilabert has been competing for Laboral-Kutxa since 2022. For Arnau, after a year in the youth structure of the Contador Foundation and a couple of seasons in which he has combined his sporting career with some part-time work, it will be the third season in the U23 category and the first in which he will focus more exclusively on cycling.