Bahrain Victorious will be participating in the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana this week, which is now also part of the newly established UCI ProSeries, with Matej Mohorič and newcomer Luis León Sánchez leading the team.

Alongside the duo will be Dylan Teuns and Jan Tratnik, with Stephen Williams, Yukiya Arashiro and Pello Bilbao rounding out the team.

Historically, Bahrain Victorious have had strong performances in the autonomous community of Spain, with Wout Poels achieving a strong second place in Stage Four, just two years ago here.

The ‘Tour of Valencia’ was founded in 1929 and since then has played host to 72 editions of road cycling racing. As this year’s European road season gets underway, this race is an important season opener in understanding where the team is and wants to be.

The Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana 2022 race begins in the province of Castellón and spans 786km of Spain over the five stages. Stage one will involve a climb towards the end with a hill that tops out at 3km to go, whilst the final 8km from Alicante to Antenas del Maigmo in stage three is not too dissimilar from Balcon de Alicante, with a section of dirt road to contend with in the final kilometres. Stages two, four and five will in most likelihood involve bunch finishes – showing the importance of maintaining position in the peloton.

The 2022 event is expected to have ‘almost 170 cyclists’ participating from more than 20 countries and also broadcasted internationally. Our very own sports director, Neil Stephens, is confident of a strong performance this week.

Neil Stephens: “After a good, solid couple of months of training, we are really looking forward to getting back into race mode. The boys have been looking great in training but now the season begins and we’ll see just how far we can go!”