Preparations in full swing for a memorable UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup – Benidorm Costa Blanca 2023
It’s only 48 hours to go for the UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup – Benidorm Costa Blanca 2023 and everything is ready to let the fans enjoy one of the greatest shows in sports worldwide. Benidorm will feature a unique circuit, with two very different parts that will take the cyclists to they very limit in Sunday's races.
As soon as they take the start, riders will enter the Foietes park, where they will face the greatest load of technical challenges of the course. They will constantly change surfaces (grass, asphalt, gravel) while they tackle two stairs sections, a 32-meter-long bridge and an impressive 40-meter long sandbank that will show way towards a tough climb up to El Moralet park.
🤪 ¿Queréis ver más partes del circuito de la Copa del Mundo #BenidormCX?
😍🚴♂️ Discover the #BenidormCX World Cup course! pic.twitter.com/2QsfTVKhDI
— CX Benidorm Costa Blanca – CX World Cup 22/23 (@BenidormCX) January 20, 2023
Once there, the UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup – Benidorm Costa Blanca 2023 will dive into a beautiful Mediterranean forest in which cyclists will have to face constant slides. Once they reach the highest point of the course, they will head down into a very fast descent before getting back into the Foietes Park to face a new section of grass. That's where the planks will be located, right before the finish line.
Pascual Momparler: "We have built a circuit like no other"
The UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup – Benidorm Costa Blanca 2023 will be the southernmost event of the UCI’s tournament and, therefore, a very different circuit from what fans are used to in Central Europe countries. Pascual Momparler, CEO of Momparler Cycling, says thay «it will be a circuit like no other. There will be no mud – and we did not want it. It's not something I wanted when I dreamed of this event, and neither did Flanders Classics. We wanted something completely different and that's what fans are going to get. I think it will turn out as one of the most beautiful races of the year because we are going to have a very fast circuit in which the three, four, or five leaders are going to ride in a group. We are going to see attacks, regrouping… it will be an exciting race until the very end».
Rainbow vibes
The UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup – Benidorm Costa Blanca 2023 will have one of the best line-ups of the season, with quite a bunch of reigning and former UCI World Champions in the different categories.
The Men Elite race will get together the wearers of the last nine rainbow jerseys: the current UCI World Champion, Tom Pidcock, on his last outing in this acclaimed outfit; four-time UCI World Champion Mathieu Van der Poel (2015, 2019, 2020 and 2021); three-time UCI World Champion Wout van Aert (2016, 2017 and 2018); and yet another three-time UCI World Champion in Zdenek Stybar (2010, 2011 and 2014).
If there is someone who can show off her world titles is Marianne Vos, though. Next Saturday she will wear the rainbow jersey she earned in Fayetteville 12 months ago. That one was her eighth gold medal after those of 2006 , 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. Along with her, Lucinda Brand, World Champion in 2021, will also be at the start.
Focusing on the lower categories, the race will feature the current U23 men's and women's champions, Joran Wyseure and Puck Pieterse (who now competes as an Elite) and reigning Junior Women’s UCI World Champion, Zoe Backstedt (who will partake in the Women Elite race).
