Spanish National Championships: Marcel Camprubí seals stunning victory in elite men’s road race

Taking place in the region of Aragón, the savage 211km course featured some difficult climbing in its early stages, and concluded with a repeated 26.5km circuit around Sabiñánigo with multiple punchy climbs. What resulted was a highly attritional race with multiple attacks, which saw the bunch average around 46km/h over the first three-quarters of the race’s distance.

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Despite Movistar controlling the bunch in the early stages, a lead group composed of 15 riders broke away from the main peloton after around 35 kilometres. It featured two riders from UAE Team Emirates-XRG among others, with Movistar noticeable by their absence.

With 47 kilometres to go, the lead group split on one of the circuit’s numerous climbs, with the trio from Caja Rural spearheading the move that went clear, and the only WorldTour rider among the group UAE’s Igor Arrieta.

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A chasing group of riders following on behind couldn’t make an impression, despite bringing the leaders to within 20 seconds at one point, but with teammates from the lead group among the number, the group struggled with cohesion, and the gap ballooned out to way beyond a minute.

Urko Berrade (Equipo Kern Pharma) launched from the front of the lead group with 26 kilometres remaining, but he couldn’t make his attack stick, and with the race heading into the final 20 kilometres, six riders were left in contention – Berrade, Arrieta, Héctor Álvarez (Lidl-Trek Future Racing), Nicolau, Joan Bou (Caja Rural) and Camprubí.

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Just before the 20km to go mark, Berrade attacked again, and only Nicolau and Camprubí could stay with his pace. The three riders were caught again a few kilometres later, however, as Arrieta was able to drag himself back, with Bou serving as an anchor on behalf of his teammate Nicolau, also being brought back into the mix.

With 10km to go, tempers flared in the group of five as they sped towards the finish, guaranteed that if they stayed upright, one of them would take an unprecedented first victory at their national road race. Surprisingly, the first to lose touch was the only WorldTour rider in the group, Arrieta, dropping after suffering a bout of cramp.

It all kicked off with five kilometres to go with Bou sacrificing himself for his teammate, and the trio of Berrade, Nicolau and Camprubí forged clear. The instigator of many of the attacks throughout the day, Berrade was irrepressible as they headed towards the finish, attacking 3 kilometres from the line, and again at 1.5 kilometres, but he was unable to drop either of his companions, as the race headed for a three-up sprint.

The three riders played cat and mouse as they headed into the punchy climb up to the finish line. Berrade launched first but he paid for his repeated aggression throughout the race, lacking the power to follow through on his effort. Camprubí and Nicolau fought head-to-head to the line, with Camprubí the eventual winner.