Lloret de Mar will host a new edition of the Gran Fondo Lloret Costa Brava cycle touring event on Sunday 24 April. The event will once again offer two circular routes and two distances to suit different levels of difficulty: a 90 km distance, with a 1,400-metre climb and four mountain passes, which will start and return to Lloret via Llagostera, Sant Feliu de Guíxols and Tossa, returning along the area’s main road; and the Gran Fondo of 160 km, with a 2,700-metre climb and a route with a total of 2,700 metres of elevation gain and four mountain passes.700 metres of elevation gain and a much more demanding route with 7 mountain passes through the towns of Caldes de Malavella, Girona, La Bisbal de Empordà, Calonge, Sant Feliu de Guíxols and Tossa, returning to Lloret de Mar along the coast.
The Gran Fondo Lloret Costa Brava closed its registration last week with 1,200 participants, exhausting all the bibs available. In terms of the origin of the cyclists taking part, 86% are Spanish (95% of them from Catalonia), followed by participants from countries such as France, Andorra, Portugal, Italy, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany and Brazil. In the words of the manager of Lloret Turisme, Elizabeth Keegan, “The Gran Fondo Lloret Costa Brava is an unbeatable showcase for our potential as a cycle tourism destination, both because of the setting with spectacular stretches such as the one from Lloret de Mar to Sant Feliu and because of the specialisation of the private sector with services adapted to the needs of these athletes”. In terms of overnight stays, 330 participants in the event (apart from those accompanying them) will spend the night in Lloret de Mar.
Lloret de Mar has been certified as a Sports Tourism Destination since 2006 and has fourteen hotels specialising in cycle tourism. Every year, especially during the first quarter of the year, it welcomes more than 3,000 cyclists, both amateurs and professionals, who choose the destination for their sporting holidays.
The Gran Fondo Lloret Costa Brava sporting event brings to a close two weeks in which Lloret de Mar has been at full sporting capacity. More than 4,300 athletes and 7,800 accompanying persons stayed overnight at the destination over the last few days, and large-scale sporting events such as the MIC football tournament, the Sant Jaume football tournament, the Globasket basketball tournament and the Lloret Cup handball tournament were held.
