Sort and Pallars Sobirà will host a stage start of the Volta 2024
November 10 th 2023 - 11:45 [GMT + 1]
The Volta Ciclista a Catalunya 2024 will have for the first time in history a stage start from Sort, the capital of Pallars Sobirà. In this way, the Catalan cycling race, which will take place in its 103rd edition from 18 to 24 March, returns to Sort after 1976, when it celebrated a stage finish in the 56th edition of the race with the victory of a cycling legend, the Belgian Roger de Vlaeminck.
The route of the 103rd edition of the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya continues to be updated, with an unprecedented stage start called Sort - Turisme Pallars Sobirà. From the capital of Pallars Sobirà will start one of the seven stages of the Catalan UCI World Tour race, which will take the best riders in the world to the heart of the Pyrenees.
In 1976, the Volta a Catalunya had already been present in the capital of Pallars Sobirà, with a stage starting in Almacelles and finishing in Sort with a victory for the Belgian Roger de Vlaeminck, a real rider legend, with four victories in the Paris-Roubaix and one of only three riders with victories in the five monuments.
In that edition of the Volta, de Vlaeminck won three stages. Sort and Pallars Sobirà will once again experience the visit of the best riders in the world in their streets this coming 2024 with the start of a stage. Sort is a town with around 2,200 inhabitants and is considered the historic centre of Pallars Sobirà, where the remains of the Comtal Castle and numerous medieval vestiges are preserved.
Sort is the capital of the region, the territory with the most protected areas in Catalonia. The high mountains, glacial ponds, exuberant nature, wild fauna and villages frozen in time are the presentation of Pallars, a territory formed by the sum of the valleys of the Alt Pirineu joined by the Noguera Pallaresa, a river that is the heart of the region and of the town of Sort, which enjoys an important tourist offer around rafting and the high mountains.
The Parc Nacional d'Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici or the Parc Natural de l'Alt Pirineu are some of the great attractions of Pallars Sobirà, which will shine in a Volta a Catalunya 2024 that has already confirmed a hight stage finish in the resort of Port Ainé.
"The Consell Comarcal del Pallars Sobirà and the Sort Town Council considers very important that the 103rd edition of the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya will go through their territory and that there will be a stage start in Sort, as it reinforces the commitment that the Consell is making to the sport of cycling, with the Bike-Natura-Aventura Pallars Sobirà project, with 2.3 million euros of investment from the Next Generation funds of the European Union, to promote a cycling tourism project. This project takes a change to the creation, structuring, organisation and promotion of the tourist product related to cycling in all its forms, with the aim of deseasonalise the tourist offers and making it possible to carry out sustainable cycling activities for visitors to Pallars Sobirà throughout the year", stated the president of the Consell Comarcal del Pallars Sobirà, Carles Isús.
"It is an honour for the Volta to close an unprecedented stage start from Sort. The high mountains are one of the hallmarks of the Volta a Catalunya, and having the complicity of Pallars Sobirà will help us to enjoy stages of great sporting and scenic attraction", said Rubèn Peris, president of the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya Associació Esportiva.
In this way, Sort will be able to enjoy the spectacle and infrastructure of an event like the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya, a cycling stage race on the UCI World Tour calendar, the most prestigious on the international calendar. The Volta has the assured participation of the 25 best cycling teams in the world, as well as a high impact media coverage that brings the images of the race on television to 190 countries and up to five continents, through 33 international broadcasters.
Sort will live the presentation of the teams, the start of the stage and all the previous events of one of the seven stages of the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya which the route for its 2024 edition is becoming increasingly clearer, and that will be held from 18 to 24 March. The best riders in the world will be looking to take over from the last winner, the Slovenian Primoz Roglic, on a route that will start from Sant Feliu de Guíxols and will have three mountain finishes in Port Ainé, Vallter and Queralt.
Fotografia: Roger de Vlaeminck, vencedor en l'únic precedent de la Volta a Sort com a arribada d'etapa. (Arxiu Volta).