AlUla Tour winner Simon Yates will return to action as he leads Team Jayco AlUla alongside an in-form Chris Harper at the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya.
The 31-year-old Brit is a former stage winner at the week-long race and has twice finished in the top-10 overall. The squad is packed with climbing talent with Australian Harper backing up from a strong performance at Paris-Nice, while young Colombian David Peña is back after racing the UAE Tour.
American Lawson Craddock lines-up off the back of tough edition of Tirreno-Adriatico, withfast finishing German Felix Engelhardt giving the team options in the sprints throughout the week. Rounding out the team will be Chris Juul-Jensen and Jan Maas who are set to make up the ‘engine room’.
The 103rd edition of the Volta a Catalunya features typically lumpy terrain, with two success summit finishes on stages two and three, including the ascent of Vallter 2000, the highest road climb in the region. The race will conclude with the classic and familiar circuit in Barcelona as the peloton lap around the scenic Montjuic.
Team Jayco AlUla at the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya:
Lawson Craddock (USA)
Felix Engelhardt (GER)
Chris Harper (AUS)
Chris Juul-Jensen (DEN)
Jan Maas (NED)
David Peña (COL)
Simon Yates (GBR)
Simon Yates:
“I had a busy start to the season with the Tour Down Under and then straight to the AlUla Tour. Both races are important for the team, and it was nice to get the win in AlUla. After that I had a bit of illness, but it’s good to be pinning a number on again and lining up with the guys.
Obviously, there will be a lot of guys racing here with either Paris-Nice or Tirreno in their legs, so we will have to see where I’m at compared to the rest during the week.
I always enjoy racing Catalunya, especially the circuit on the last stage in Barcelona. I didn’t finish the race in 2022 and I had a different program last year, so I’m looking forward to going back again and getting stuck in.”
David McPartland (Sport Director):
“We’ve got a good, strong climbing team headed by Yates and Harper, plus our young Colombian prospect Peña, then we’ve got Felix Engelhardt for the stages that finish in a sprint or a bigger, select group.
It’s a hard Catalunya this year, with three ‘proper’ mountain stages on stages two, three and six, so they are all spread throughout the week, so we’re looking forward to a big week.
This is always one of our favourite races as a team, we’ve had success over the years in Catalunya, we won the race overall with Michael Albasini way back in 2012 and we’ve won a heap of stages there. It’s been happy hunting ground for us is in the past and this year we’ll be looking to continue that run for another year.”
