Much talk about defending the Volta, if it is a monument of Catalan sport, a test created long before the Football League was born; a lot of talking, a lot of photography, a lot of noise, but who puts the dough?
already seems like preach in the desert. Most of the cycling races organize a publicity caravan that leaves before the runners and that serves to encourage with their gifts the fans who have taken to the road or the neighbors who leave their houses and occupy the streets with the conviction that that cycling is a party, a free sporting event that passes through your town without the need to go to a stadium, field or circuit. Instead, the Volta, zero, nothing at all. Of course, with luxury stars.
The photo and little else
A lot to defend the Volta, take a photo or celebrate that Catalonia organizes the third oldest cycling stage race, only surpassed, and not a little, by the Tour and the Giro. But it turns out that this year, to give an example, there has been the case of the Girona City Council that has not even wanted to pay the 2,500 euros that it was asked to put up a banner and host a special sprint, which a few years ago was called a flying goal.
The Girona City Council did not want to pay the 2,500 euros that a special sprint in the city cost
The truth is that no government of the Generalitat has wanted to certify the death of the race, no president has wanted to send it to the crematorium and collect the ashes. But the president of France, regardless of his political colors, always goes to the Tour one day. Sarkozy did it, then Hollande and lately Macron. For the Volta, neither Puigdemont, nor Torra, nor Aragonès have ever appeared with their official cars. Although it is true that the Generalitat is one of the main lungs of the race, money trickles in. And, where are the local private companies that turn to the rest of the cycling races that are organized throughout Europe? Here nobody wants to put a euro.
Sponsorships to other races
For some time now, Banco de Sabadell has been responsible for the grand prix -that is, the main sponsor- of the Itzulia (the official name in recent seasons of the Tour of the Basque Country where it is expected that this year the lendakari will be seen) or the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana. The Volta, surprisingly, has always been left out of its economic shelter. In Catalonia, on the other hand, only the logos of the Generalitat and some of its brands are visible such as Catalunya (in its tourist aspect) or Loteries de Catalunya. the rest are technical sponsors, apart from Moritz beers… and little else. No Catalan company dares to capitalize on the race. And so year by year. It is already a losing battle. Impossible to make a cycling homeland.
The Tour, on the other hand, a French company under the name of ASO, is the other great umbrella of the race. It provides television and one of its major sponsors, the automobile brand Skoda, with the necessary fleet of vehicles for the test to go ahead.
Rubèn Peris is the president of the Volta, although one could almost say that he is the archangel of the race. If he had thrown in the towel, using a sporting expression, it would have been written an eternity ago that the Volta was a hundred-year-old race that took place in Catalonia, a land of businessmen, factories, host to multinationals… those that have left his luck to the dean test of Catalan sport.