The XLIII edition of the International Cycling Tour of Chiriquí culminates this Sunday, January 14, with a closed circuit that will take place at Parque Cervantes in the city of David and a very close individual general classification.
This Saturday the sixth stage was won by the Costa Rican Sergio Arias (Colono Bikestation Kolbi) with a time of 3 hours 51 minutes and 58 seconds for the 153 kilometers of the route.
The race had the last opportunity for the climbers and where Franklin Archibold came out to defend his leadership, however, he had a tough time when on the ascent towards Los Planes Gabriel Rojas (7C-Economy-Lacoinex), Sergio Arias and Sebastián left in the lead Moya (Colono-Bikestation-Kolbi) and Roberto Gonzales from Rali-Giant
These four runners had an advantage of 2:30 over Archibold who was giving up his lead, however, on the descent he found in Cristopher Jurado and Alex Strath some luxury teammates who little by little reduced the differences with the escapees. , who were also paying dearly for the effort they made kilometers ago.
In the last 10 km of the journey to the finish line, the difference was 50 seconds and that was where the attacks began in the breakaway, leaving Gabriel Rojas and seeing how his aspirations to be leader were fading.
The stage was competed by Sergio Arias and Roberto Gonzales who, in addition to the victory, were looking for the bonus and dreaming of being leaders in Chiriquí, Arias left the victory and thus gave the Colono-Bikestation-Kolbi the second consecutive victory.
Panamanian Roberto González (Rali Giant) came second with the same time as Arias, while third was Gabriel Rojas (7C Economy Lacoinex) who crossed the finish line 19 seconds behind.
This day left Gabriel Rojas himself as champion of the mountain with 27 points and also as leader of the individual overall, a shirt that he had already worn after the second task.
“This race is still open and we know that we will have attacks from those seeking the title of this great Vuelta,” said Gabriel Rojas.
In the general table Rojas has an advantage of one second over the Panamanian Franklin Archibold (Panama is Culture and Values) and three seconds over the also national Alex Strah (Panama is Culture and Values).
Fernando Ureña (Descarados Cycling Club) commands the Master classification, Roberto González (Rali Giant) dominates the Points classification and the Colombian Bryan Quintero (Esparza Pergolas Isostar) leads the Under-23.
This Sunday the last 90 kilometers of this Cycling Tour of Chiriquí will be held. There will be 25 laps to complete 90 kilometers with three intermediate sprints and the race will start at 10:00 in the morning.
Source: FEPACI y www.crciclismo.com