La Vuelta 21 will start from an unusual place: inside the Burgos Cathedral. „It will be the first time a cycling race starts from inside a cathedral“, announced the general manager of La Vuelta, Javier Guillén, during the official presentation of the start of La Vuelta 21, one of the main event organized by the Fundación VIII Centenario de la Catedral. Burgos 2021 to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the church, in July.
Javier Guillén announced La Vuelta 21 will start on August 14th 2021 with an individual time-trial from inside the Burgos Cathedral. The riders will go through the main entrance ahead of a „urban circuit“ set to illustrate the „monumental character of the city“. They will go past the castle before they return to the Cathedral, where the finish will also be set.
WORLDWIDE SHOWCASE
The start of La Vuelta 21 follows the innovative path that Unipublic has defended in the recent years, turning the Spanish Grand Tour into “a showcase capable of bringing the excellence of our country to the rest of the world”, highlighted Javier Guillén, who has made a simile between a stage race and a pilgrimage. It will be even more acute in 2021, the Jacobean Year, since the Burgos Cathedral is one of the landmarks of the Camino de Santiago.
To present this first stage of La Vuelta 21, a first view of the time-trial has been recreated, under the watch of the famous automaton Papamoscas and with the rider Ángel Fuentes (Burgos BH), who was wearing a jersey designed for the occasion of the 800th anniversary of the Burgos Cathedral.

AN EXAMPLE OF COLLABORATION BETWEEN INSTITUTIONS
If something has become clear in this morning’s event, it is the good harmony between institutions which have collaborated to make the commitment that was signed almost a year ago, on December 18, 2019, a reality.
Today’s event was attended by the mayor of Burgos, Daniel de la Rosa; the counsellor of the Presidency of the Junta de Castilla y León, Ángel Ibáñez; the vice president of the Burgos Provincial Council, Lorenzo Rodríguez; the general director of Sports of the Junta de Castilla y León, María Perrino; the president and vice president of the Fundación VIII Centenario de la Catedral. Burgos 2021, Fidel Herráez and Antonio Miguel Méndez Pozo; and the dean of the Cathedral, Pablo González Cámara.

The participants have received commemorative statuettes of the departure of La Vuelta 21 made by the sculptor from Burgos Cristino Díez. This sporting event will be added to the commemoration of the 800th anniversary of the Burgos Cathedral and other milestones that will come together in Burgos such as the year of Jubilee granted by the Vatican, the Jacobean Year, the 800th anniversary of the death of Santo Domingo de Guzmán and the exhibition Las Edades del Hombre, as Antonio Miguel Méndez Pozo, vice president of the Fundación VIII Centenario de la Catedral. Burgos 2021 recalled.
Daniel de la Rosa, Mayor of Burgos, said it is a „true luxury“ and something „exceptional“ to see the Cathedral welcome the start of one of the three Grand Tours of the international cycling calendar, and that it does so from „a living monument, which is being renewed”, as Lorenzo Rodríguez, vice president of the Burgos Provincial Council, has underlined.
Thus, the 800th anniversary and La Vuelta 21 will remain “united”, in the words of Fidel Herráez, President of the Fundación VIII Centenario de la Catedral. Burgos 2021, and will keep demonstrating „the firm commitment of the Fundación for Castilla y León“, as highlighted by Ángel Ibáñez, counselor of the presidency of the Junta de Castilla y León.