The second Shimano Super Cup Massi race will have a new Short Track format and will be broadcast live on Ocisport TV. 26 cyclists who have been ranked among the top 20 in the world will be in Banyoles.

The twenty-second edition of the race in Banyoles will once again be one of the global epicentres of Olympic Cross-Country racing. The second event of the 2023 Shimano Super Cup Massi will bring together the elite of international mountain biking and serve as a UCI Test Event to prepare for the cross-country season that will begin a new cycle.

The classic Banyoles race will also be decisive in the awarding of UCI points for the next Olympic Games in Paris in 2024, whose qualifying process has already begun.

This will be the seventh season in which it will be a Hors Class event, the first one in Spain to achieve the highest category of the International Cycling Union. Banyoles will once again innovate by incorporating the Short Track format, thus replicating the competition programme that the World Cup had until now before beginning a new era in 2023.

Many important reasons will attract 900 registered participants of 32 nationalities, including 26 national cross-country champions and continental champions, to the Parc de la Draga beside Banyoles Lake.

The favourites in the men’s category include 15 cyclists who feature in the Top 20. Among them we should mention the number one in the world ranking, the Spaniard David Valero (BH Coloma), who finished second in the opening race of the Shimano Super Cup Massi held in La Nucia. The Olympic medallist won in Banyoles in 2014, and he’ll have to face the reigning champion and the fourth cyclist in the UCI ranking, Frenchman Titouan Carod (BMC), as well as the Italian Luca Bradoit (SantaCruz RockShox), world number two, and the members of Lapierre Mavic Unity, Thomas Litscher from Switzerland, third in the last race, and the Danish champion Sebastian Fini, who finished third in the first round of this event.

South African Alan Hatherly, ranked seventh in the world, will lead the Cannondale Factory team, which will also feature Britain’s Charlie Aldridge and Denmark’s Simon Andreassen. His former team-mate and the winner of the 2020 race, Brazilian Henrique Avancini (Caloi), Spanish-Romanian Vlad Dascalu (Trek Factory), currently ranked sixth in the world, and Belgian Pierre de Froidmont (Orbea Factory) complete the UCI top 10.

We should also highlight the participation of Frenchman Jordan Sarrou (BMC), former world champion and a multiple podium finisher, Swiss and former European champion Lars Forster (Thömus Maxon) and the Czech champion Ondrej Cink (Primaflor Mondraker Genuins).

The Spaniards will include Jofre Cullell, winner of the 2022 Shimano Super Cup Massi, and Pablo Rodríguez (both from BH Coloma), with two excellent performances in the first round of the Shimano Super Cup Massi, as well as David Campos (Orbea Factory), who has also had a fine start to the season.

The women’s line-up is as attractive, or even more so, than the men’s, with double world champion Evie Richards (Trek Factory) looking for her fourth consecutive victory. The British rider will compete against the world number one, winner of the World Cup and runner-up in the last Banyoles race, the Swiss Alessandra Keller (Thömus Maxon), Frenchwoman Loana Lecomte (Canyon Cllctv), European champion and second in the world, Dutch champion Anne Terpstra (Ghost Factory Racing) and the former bike marathon world champion, Austrian Mona Mitterwallner (Cannondale Factory). Denmark’s Caroline Bohe (Ghost Factory Racing) is the last of the top ten in the international ranking.

We’ll also have to watch out for Shimano Super Cup Massi leader Malene Degnfrom Denmark and her British teammate Annie Last (Lapierre Mavic Unity), who came third in last year’s race, Italian champion Martina Berta (SantaCruz RockShox), American Haley Batten, Austrian Laura Stigger  and former Short Track world champion Sina Frei from Switzerland (all three from Specialized Factory Racing), MMR Factory Racing cyclists Matilda Szczecinska and Raquel Queirós, as well as Dutchwoman Anne Tauber (Orbea Factory), American champion Savilia Blunk (Rockrider Racing), the Estonian champion Janika Loiv (KMC), Linn Gustafsson from Sweden and the American cyclist Kelsey Urban (both from Team 31).

The leading Spaniards will be the reigning Spanish Cross Country and Short Track champions, Rocío del Alba García (BH Coloma) and Lucía Gómez (MMR Factory Racing), the two-time European bike marathon champion, Natalia Fischer (BH Coloma) and her teammate, Spanish XCO runner-up and winner of the 2022 Shimano Super Cup Massi Nuria Bosch, together with Estíbaliz Sagardoy (Saltoki Conor).

The Short Track race will be held on Friday afternoon, while the elite women’s and men’s XCO races and the male UCI Junior Series will take place on Sunday morning. In between them there will also be races for the under-23 men, junior women, cadets and masters.

An unrivalled programme

The 22nd Banyoles race will feature 9 different top-level international competitions:

Friday 24th February

3:30 pm Women’s Short Track
4:15 pm Men’s Short Track

Saturday 25th February

9:00 am Start Men’s Cadet / Men’s Masters 50/60
10:30 am Start Men’s Masters 30/40
2:00 pm Men’s U23 XCO – LIVE TV
4:00 pm Women’s Start (Cadet, Masters 30/40/50 and Juniors)

Sunday 26th February

10:00 am Men’s Junior series XCO
PODIUMS
11:45 am Women’s elite & U23 XCO (combined women’s category) – LIVE TV
2:00 pm Men’s elite XCO (option for under-23) – LIVE TV

The Banyoles Shimano Super Cup Massi will offer live broadcasts of the male Under-23 (Saturday 2:00 pm), female elite (Sunday 11:45 am) and male elite (Sunday 2:00 pm) categories on Ocisport TV.