At the top of the finish line, in the middle of the mountain, he climbed to 14th place and fourth among the under-23s. Sanabria in 18th and De Leon in 21st, and Cuba remains sixth.

Randol Izquierdo was today the best for Cuba in the queen stage of the Tour of Chiriqui 2024 when he climbed to 14th place, fourth among the under-23 category of the Panamanian cycling tour.

With this performance during the sixth day, he remained twelfth in the overall individual classification at the end of a Tuesday in which his teammates Vicente Sanabria and Yariel de León were the other distinguished riders of the team, placing 18th and 21st, in that order.

A total of 69 men completed the 127.2 kilometres of the route, which included two mountain prizes, the last one at the finish line and at 1000 metres above sea level.

Both matanceros also defended their privileged positions in the most important department, the general, and held positions as sixth and sixteenth, respectively.

Thus, the team was propped up in the sixth place in the team ranking of a West Indian team completed by José Domínguez (40th overall and 14th under-23), Jorge Rojas (51st), Joselín Piedra (53rd) and the also under-23, Ricardo Cardoso (58th), who secured third places in the two intermediate sprints.

The demanding climb, with its last 1300 metres uphill in constant mist, was dominated by Costa Rican Joseph Ramirez (Esparza Training), who clocked 3:21.44 hours between the city of David and the summit of La Chancleta.

His compatriot Andrés Alpizar (Ciclo Cafe-Coffee Expert) climbed 19 seconds later and 54 seconds behind him was Michael Caballero (Rally-Giant), leader of the under-23s.

Behind climbed the Tico Gabriel Pacheco (Marriott) to 1.12 minutes of the hero of the day and, in fifth position, the host Bolivar Espinosa (Panama Culture and Values) to 1.33, enough to remain as absolute leader of this old turn, which celebrates its 44th edition.

«Without a doubt it is the queen stage, there was no other harder, the mountains are the great challenge of the routers and although you suffer, you enjoy it. You have to know how to keep the pace throughout the climb because you can «explode» before the finish,» Izquierdo told JIT.

«This Wednesday is the penultimate individual time trial, it’s not my strong point, but I’ll go out to give it my all. We hope that Domínguez performs well, he rides it well and he is the best of us in this discipline, although we are all in excellent shape», said the Avileño about the possibilities of the completely flat 19.3 kilometre section.

The Vuelta a Chiriquí concludes on Thursday with the 97.5 kilometres that will be run in a closed circuit.