The tragedy occurred this Thursday, February 9. Estela Dominguez was out for her daily training in Villares de la Reina, in the Castile and Leon region of Spain. A member of the professional Sopela Women’s Team, she was one of the great hopes of Spanish women’s cycling. The young woman was hit during her session by a truck and was found unconscious on the side of the road. Paramedics who arrived on the scene were unable to revive her. Estela Dominguez died before arriving at the hospital.
Still a junior last year, Estela Dominguez began her promising career with a few places of honor in the Spanish Cup. In 2022, she also finished fourth in the Spanish championship time trial and fifth in the road race. She also came to run in France on the Tour du Gévaudan Occitanie, last May. She had taken 98th place in the final general classification. This winter, she also took part in a round of the cyclo-cross World Cup in Benidorm, near Alicante.
Estela Dominguez was the daughter of former professional rider Juan Carlos Dominguez, a member of the Spanish Kelme team in 1994. Never seen on the roads of the Tour de France, he had however participated several times in the Giro and the Vuelta. In 2002, he won the Tour of Italy prologue and wore the pink jersey. He ended his career in 2006 after a heavy fall on the Tour de la Sarthe. History has also remembered him that he had been excluded from the Tour of Spain for too high a hematocrit, in 1998, the year of the Festina affair on the Tour de France.