2023-10-29 22:30:35
By @jmhers
A thrilling race took place in the avenues of Santiago and on the ramps of the Mirador Vitacura, on the San Cristóbal hill, in the men’s road cycling event of the Pan American Games, in which the Ecuadorian Jhonatan Narváez emerged the winner after 157.5 kilometers.
photo: Olympic Ecuador
A total of 42 runners took the start of the race, which from the first kilometers was at a good pace with several attempts to form a breakaway led mainly by the Brazilian team, but without success. The teams from Ecuador and Venezuela were the ones that worked the most in the first 30 km without giving any runner the opportunity to leave, no matter how harmless it might be a priori.
However, in the second lap of the circuit it was Richard Carapaz, one of the big favorites for victory, who went ahead with Kaden Hopkins from Bermuda and they maintained a gap of about 15 to 20” for several kilometers, which forced teams like Venezuela or Argentina to pursue and spend units to neutralize them.
The ramps of the port of San Cristóbal invited attacks at every turn. Runners like the Colombian Víctor Ocampo, or the Chilean Martín Vidaurre attacked and formed cuts that were neutralized in a few kilometers.
Towards the halfway point of the race, about 70 km from the finish line, the final cut had been formed with the strongest runners: Jhonatan Narváez, Carapaz, Eric Fagundez (Uruguay), Orluis Aular (Venezuela, Eduardo Sepúlveda (Argentina) were among the men who formed that select leading group. The rest of the runners, divided into some groups, were already losing too much time to be a threat.
Approximately 42 km from the finish line, on the descent from the mountain pass when there were still two full laps of the circuit left, Jhonatan Narvaez attacked that group of favorites and managed to open a gap that increased to 36 – 40 seconds. He and Richard Carapaz had made the previous climb to San Cristóbal hard, so they had managed to pick off some riders and prepare the acceleration of the Ineos Grenadiers team rider.
The Argentine team, which still had two units in Sepúlveda and Laureano Rosas, and Eric Fagundez and Orluis Aular were the most committed in the pursuit of the Ecuadorian, while Richard Carapaz did the police work in that chasing group. After making a significant expenditure of energy, the group reduced Narváez’s lead to less than 20” about 17 km from the finish line. In the last step across the finish line, at the sound of the bell, the Ecuadorian raised his foot and waited for his pursuers: Nicolas Mariotto (Brazil), Sepúlveda, Fagundez, Aular, Carapaz and Vidaurre. The Chilean surprised by hanging on with the best after having been attacking from early in the race.
At the foot of the last ascent to Mirador Vitacura Eduardo Spúlveda tried to surprise his rivals and attacked to do the entire ascent alone, always with about 15 – 20 seconds ahead. Richard Carapaz fell to the ground in one of the horseshoe curves of the climb but without consequences he immediately got up and returned to the group.
It would be Carapaz’s work on the descent and in the last kilometers of the flat that would bring back Sepúlveda, who maintained his advantage until about 3 km to the finish line. The Olympic Champion’s work did not stop there and he led the entire group of favorites at a good pace until the final meters, in which Jhonatan Narvaez launched an incontestable sprint, taking advantage of the fact that the rest of the favorites looked quite fair and dispersed after the launch of Carapaz.
The Venezuelan Aular, one of the best options in the case of a reduced sprint, was already very tight on his legs due to the strong pace that had been maintained in the last laps and was unable to get into the sprint.
Narváez crossed the finish line in first place, setting a time of 3h37’56” and with a healthy advantage over Eduardo Sepúlveda who took the silver after beating Eric Fagundez in a tight sprint who won the bronze.
Marcelo Hernandez
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