The Venezuelan national championships will be held on a hilly course this year where home team Mobil will be favourites, split into two teams led by Besada and Becerra. Most other teams have only have 1 Venezuelan rider although Monsalve for Volkswagen is likely the best rider here.
As soon as the race begins, Abreu, Galviz, Torres, Campos and Nieves all go on the attack.
With 15km left the break has 22 minutes on the peloton who haven’t done any chasing today. It looks like the break will contest the win today.
Abreu goes on the attack with 5km to go, there’s no reaction from the rest of the break.
The rest of the break isn’t working well together and Abreu begins to open a gap, so Galviz attacks to chase Abreu. There are 4km left.
Galviz catches Abreu and the chase behind has stopped chasing for some reason. Now with 2km left they have 2 minutes on the rest of the break.
They enter the final kilometre and Abreu launches the sprint!
Abreu easily beats Galviz to become the new Venezualan champion! Behind Nieves beats Campos for the final podium spot as some consolation for Mobil here. The rest of the peloton fails to finish the race.
The Time trial is up next, there are some strong crosswinds to start today so it may benefit later riders if it dies down. Monsalve is the favourite here. Although a few other riders led by Abreu could contend for the win here.
Torres is the first rider off and looks good today, he finishes in 1h13’44, setting the time to best today.
Sequera is the next rider off today and finishes 32 seconds short of Torres’ time, who must have raced pretty well today.
The wind begins to die down as Rujano enters the second part of the course, letting him speed to a time of 1h12’17.
Anaya takes the lead right off him, finishing in 1h11’11 and looking like a serious chance to win, although Monsalve and Abreu still haven’t come in.
Abreu finishes second, 29 seconds short of Anaya, just Monsalve can still win these championships and he was 2 seconds faster than Anaya at the final time check.
Monsalve hits the line, 2 seconds slower than Anaya! That means the Anaya is the new Venezuelan ITT champion!
