Luis León Sánchez debuts 2024 at EPIC Gran Canaria RIU Hotels & Resorts

 

Luis León Sánchez has been linked to sport his entire life, first with football and as a cycling professional in 2004 within the Liberty Seguros team. Known and recognized as a time trialist, he won his first Spanish Time Trial Championship in 2008, but it would not be the last, since from that moment on he began to accumulate victories as champion of Paris-Nice and a stage of the Tour de France in 2009, the Championship. of Spain Time Trial in 2010, 2011 and 2012, and as champion of the XXX edition of the Clásica San Sebastián,  

 

 

He won the first stage of the Tropicale Amissa Bongo, which he completed as second on the podium, a stage in the Vuelta a Castilla y León and was on the podium in the Clásica de Ordizia, the Vuelta a Andalucía, and reached the mountain classification in the Back to Spain. With the Spanish team he won the gold medal in the road race at the European Games in Baku, and continued to add to his record with stages in the Tour of the Algarve, the Tour of the Basque Country, the Tour of Murcia, the Tour of the Alps , the Tour of Almaty, the Tour of Switzerland, or the Bruno Beghelli Grand Prix, among other sporting achievements.

 

After announcing his retirement in September 2023, Luis León Sánchez will face the EPIC Gran Canaria RIU Hotels & Resorts challenge for the first time, on February 10 and 11, 2024, to start a season full of new challenges for the Murcian with energy , which has already confirmed MTB events for this new stage.

 

 

This cycle sports race already has more than 500 confirmed entrants representing around twenty nationalities from all over the planet and will be the world headquarters of the Gran Fondo World Championship in 2024, crowning the world champions. In addition, the test has been twinned with several events in Italy, building bridges with the 5 Mila Marche, and the international Prosecco Cycling test in Valdobbiadene, in Veneto. 

 

The EPIC Gran Canaria RIU Hotels & Resorts will turn Maspalomas into the epicenter of international cycling with two stages with 115 kilometers and two timed sections, and 75 kilometers and a competitive section. On Saturday, February 10 and Sunday, February 11, cycling will make the south of Gran Canaria vibrate with excitement with a first stage departing from the RIU Palace Maspalomas hotel and with a circuit that runs through Arteara, Fataga, Tirajana and El Pajar to Pasito Blanco .

 

The first timed section of this first stage is a challenge of 12,3 kilometers at 470 meters of altitude and with an average inclination of 4,4% between Aqualand and Ayagaures, with the finish line at the Pedro González summit. The second time trial will lead the athletes to give their best with 45 kilometers and 1.304 meters of altitude, with an average slope of 4,7% between Pasito Blanco on its way up to Ayacata, on a route through Cercados de Espino, Soria, Barranquillo Andrés, the Las Niñas dam to Ayacata. 

 

The second stage will be decisive in naming the podium, with 75 kilometers of circuit and a time trial of 22 kilometers at 1.304 meters high, with an average slope of 4,7%. This stage runs through Fataga to Tirajana, to return to the RIU Palace Maspalomas via Santa Lucía, La Era, Vecindario, Doctoral and Bahía Feliz via the GC-65 and the GC-500.

 

 

Gran Canaria, sports destination without rival

 

The EPIC Gran Canaria RIU Hotels & Resorts turns Maspalomas into a great sports festival with a weekend full of surprises, a show, a batucada, entertainment during the tour, an expo area, a collective lunch, and an awards ceremony at the foot of the Maspalomas dunes. With these proposals, EPIC Gran Canaria supports the objective with which it was born in 2018, that of showing Gran Canaria as a top-level sports destination and teaching the world through cycling the benefits of the island as a privileged place for tourism and recreation. quality sport, with infrastructure and services, security and a unique, spring-like climate in the middle of winter.