Ecuadorian cyclist Richard Huera was crowned champion of the 41st edition of the Tour of Ecuador, which concluded this November 17 at the Ciudad Mitad del Mundo complex in the capital, Quito, in a stage won by Juan Carlos Córdova, of the C&S Technology team.
This Sunday, 66 cyclists rode 160 kilometers of the last stage of the tournament, in which Huera, from Movistar Best PC, crossed the finish line in fourth place, but nothing endangered the final accumulated, which was enough for him to obtain the maximum trophy of the competition.
The day before, the 26-year-old cyclist had finished first in what is considered the queen stage of the Vuelta al Ecuador and took a lead of 1:56 minutes over Spain’s Oscar Sevilla, second in the general classification.
“It was something we had been working on for a long time and that was slipping away, but it finally arrived and I’m happy,’ said Huerta in statements shared by the Ecuadorian Cycling Federation (FEC).
The cyclist, born in El Playón de San Francisco, in the province of Sucumbíos, said that he celebrated in a simple way with his closest family members, his girlfriend Melani Ortega and his “other family”, as he likes to call his teammates of the team he belongs to, Movistar Best PC.
“We celebrated like this, because the season is not over yet for us and we want to recover well for what is coming in December,” said the 25-year-old rider, referring to the Vuelta a Costa Rica, which will be held from December 13 to 22.
And it is that in the Central American round, the telephone team will try to achieve the consecutive tri-championship, after the victories of Marco Tulio Suesca in 2022 and Juan Diego Alba in 2023. This year they will try to repeat with their main assets: Huera, Byron Guamá or Santiago Montenegro.
The Vuelta a Ecuador, which began on November 11, had seven stages over a total distance of 1,125 kilometers and athletes from Colombia, the United States, Guatemala, Mexico, Venezuela and the hosts participated in the tournament.