Organisers Unipublic has announced the revamped La Vuelta Femenina will begin along the Costa Blanca coastline in Spain on May 1.
The 200km-long Mediterranean coastline is a popular tourist destination in the province of Alicante; however, organisers have not revealed the exact location of the opening stage.
"The first edition of La Vuelta Femenina by Carrefour.es will start from Costa Blanca. The full route of the race will be presented on February 28th, also in Costa Blanca, in a ceremony of which more details will be revealed soon," organisers wrote in a press release on Thursday.
Costa Blanca is also a popular cycling location among the professional teams that host annual pre-season training camps in cities such as Denia, Altea and Alicante. In addition, Benidorm recently hosted a round of the UCI Cyclocross World Cup.
In a major shake-up for the former Ceratizit Challenge by La Vuelta, organisers changed its name to La Vuelta Feminina, expanded the race to seven stages, and moved it to May 1-7 in 2023.
The event started as a one-day race in Madrid in 2015 and expanded to two stages in 2018, and a third stage was added in 2020. The race was further expanded in 2021 to four stages and in 2022 to five stages.
Former champions of the event include Shelley Olds (2015), Jolien D'hoore (2016, 2017), Ellen van Dijk (2018), Lisa Brennauer (2019, 2020), and Annemiek van Vleuten won the previous two editions in 2021 and 2022.
