Bahrain Victorious’ lineup for the Clásica San Sebastián on Saturday 10th of August is Yukia Arashiro, Damiano Caruso, Jack Haig, Finlay Pickering, Jasha Sütterlin and Torstein Træen. The team leader will be Colombian Santiago Buitrago.

This year the route has changed due to road disruptions and safety concerns, and is more reminiscent of the 2022 edition than last year’s. Riders will cover 236 km, (6 km more than 2023), to clinch the ‘txapela’ in Zurriola. 

The race will include 7 classified mountain passes. Pilotegi is a new climb that will début at the Clásica, replacing Murgil. It has slopes of up to 27%, making it even more demanding than Murgil or Bordako Tontorra.  

This edition will also include 2 intermediate sprints: one at the first finish line checkpoint, and the other at the reverse finish line checkpoint after 219.5 kilometres.  

Another new feature involves the start and finish areas moving to Zurriola Avenue, opposite the Kursaal Conference Centre. As always, the winner will be awarded the traditional Basque Country ‘txapela’ hat, with Zurriola beach and the sea as backdrops. 

Sports director Neil Stephens said: ”Santiago did a great job to finish 10th in The Tour de France. Since then, he has been off in The Olympic Games, fighting for Colombia, where he performed well and now he has got full focus on Classica San Sebastián. It’s a race that is really suited to his abilities. It’s a very mountainous race, it’s really up and down all day, with some fairly serious climbs. Coming into the final climbs of high-skill Erlaitz and then the really punchy steep climb, there are sections of over 25% of the new final climb, which finishes 8 km to go. The new climb is called Pilotegi. It’s really suited to Santiago’s climbing abilities. We get together and we will be training over the final of the course. Like I said it is a new final climb that we have never seen before, but we really want to try to get it nailed, so that we can get toward the finish and do well. And we are really hoping, I suppose we could potentially say to be at the podium in The Classic San Sebastián. 

Buitrago is looking forward to leading the team again after impressing at the Tour de France last month.

“The Clásica San Sebastián is one of my favourite races on the calendar and coming as leader excites me quite a bit. It has been a race in which the team has always been in contention and this year we come with the same objective. Personally, I am very motivated and eager to fight to obtain a good result in the end.”

Stephens added: “Motivation is high and the quality of the team we are taking is high and we think that we will do well. The race itself is in the Basque Country in the north of Spain. It’s actually all around the area where I live. It’s a race that I really enjoy doing, it’s around home, I know the roads well, I know that the demands are high, and I think I know how to get the best out of the boys. The roles of the race of the boys that will be there, Santiago is obviously the leader, Jack will basically be there as his right-hand man. He has had a bit of a break from racing after the Tour de France, has recovered well and is on his way to getting ready for La Vuelta España, so he is in great shape, providing us a supporting role for Santiago.

Torstein, also a climber, will be there to support Jack and Santiago towards the final climbs. Along with the climbers is Finlay, who is looking forward to his first experience in The ‘Klasikoa. The other riders will be trying to support the leaders throughout the day and try to get them to the harder sections. Basically, some of these riders are coming from Burgos, including Damiano who ha a pretty nasty crash and will be riding on Saturday more as training to see how his body is recovering from that.

So in summary, I think we have got a good mix of riders: good workers and good leaders. It’s a fantastic race to kick off the end of the season Spanish races.”