Sunday’s race presented, which will also touch Alpago and all of Valbelluna. Piol: “We strongly believe in this event”
The Dragon is ready to fly over Valbelluna and Alpago. The first edition of the Granfondo del Dragone will be staged on Sunday, an event for amateur cycling proposed by Dolomiti Psg, the reality that also organizes the Santa Klaus Running in Belluno and the Segafredo Granfondo in Asolo.
The name of the event comes from the territory that the granfondo intends to promote thanks to the bicycle: the Dragon of the coat of arms of the Municipality of Belluno and protagonist of the legends linked to Lake Santa Croce.
The race, which sees Decathlon as the main sponsor, will in fact develop on a 118 kilometer track and 2,700 meters of total altitude difference that will start from Belluno – Piazza dei martiri (the start is set at 7.30) and arrive at the square of Nevegàl. In the mhalfway through some of the suggestive climbs between Alpago and Limana out of heavy traffic, touching the “Coste” of Farra, Malga Cate, Pieve d’Alpago and then Valpiana and Valmorel with the suggestive uphill passage to Ronce and a stretch of dirt road before the final landing. Award ceremony and pasta party will take place in Pian Longhi.
Low mileage and technical characteristics, as well as landscape, important, for an event that wants to become a fixed point in the Belluno sports scene. Registrations are possible until today, by going to the website www.gfdeldragone.com.
“We are ready for what we consider a sort of zero edition”, explained yesterday at the official presentation, at the Astor terrace in Belluno, the coordinator of the organization Ivan Piol. “The regions represented are sixteen and we also have some foreigners: the numbers, however, given the post-covid period and the numerous concomitances (five granfondos scheduled for Sunday, including one in Padua and one in Friuli, ed) will not be huge but it is important to leave, to be there, in an area that has significant potential for two wheels ».
The Granfondo signed by Psg will also be innovation: the photographs of the competitors will be with an – innovative in fact – facial recognition system.
“We, a company in the first year of activity in the Belluno area, liked the idea of supporting an event also in the first year of life” he underlined Marco Denti, director of the Decathlon point in Ponte nelle Alpi. «We have found an excellent working group: the hope is that Sunday’s race will be the first of a long series».
Among the services that Decathlon will make available on Sunday, there will also be the one, free, of rectification of bicycles.
“Our province is made for bicycles,” says the honorable member Roger De Menech. «The great international events, such as the Giro d’Italia, are doing well, but then we need to give continuity and events like the granfondo del Dragone go precisely in this sense. I hope that the administrators of Belluno understand that on two wheels we are playing a part of our tourism future ».