Escalada a Montjuïc
Barcelona’s race to the top drew cycling’s big shots for over 40 years
Rising high above the city of Barcelona, Montjuïc is more than just an excellent vantage point from which to view Catalonia’s capital city. Since the late 1800s the hill has been a centre for recreation with its first ‘sporting’ event reportedly a pigeon shoot in 1883. The site was developed to host the 1929 international exposition but plans to hold a ‘People’s Olympics’ in 1936, as an alternative to the official event in Nazi Germany, were hit by the Spanish Civil War.
The Olympic Games finally arrived on Montjuïc in 1992 when athletics, swimming and gymnastics were among the disciplines held on the hill. There was even Formula One motor racing on Montjuïc between 1969 and 1975. It is not surprising that Juli Pernas, director of the Barcelona Olympic Foundation, describes Montjuïc as a “sports mountain par excellence”.
Hills will always attract cyclists and the climb of Montjuïc is no different. Topping out at 165 metres, and today listed as 1.95km at just under five per cent and with stretches at over 10 per cent, a timed ascent of Montjuïc was first organised by the Montjuïc Cycling Group on July 5, 1931. Fifty-nine riders were classified in the amateur event with winner Joan Salarich “rewarded with a beautiful bouquet of flowers with ribbons of Spanish and Catalan colours”. Salarich’s time was 7 minutes, 39 seconds and reportedly every rider claimed they wanted to re-ride the climb immediately now they had a benchmark. The race returned in 1932 and remained on Barcelona’s sporting calendar until 1935.
Thirty years later Federico Bahamontes won the first professional Escalada a Montjuïc, beating fellow Spaniard Julio Jiménez by six seconds in May 1965. The Spanish press saw his performance as confirmation that the ‘Eagle of Toledo’ could still be a contender at the Tour and the Vuelta. “His flight on the steepest part of the ascent to the Castle of Montjuïc was formidable,” reported El Mundo Deportivo. As it turned out, in what would be his final season, Bahamontes could only manage 10th at the Vuelta and abandoned the Tour in the Pyrenees.
Now dubbed ‘the race from the sea to the mountain’, later the same year the event returned. Comprising a massed-start race and an individual time trial, it was won by Raymond Poulidor. The race kept its two-stage format until the final edition in 2007. Its demise due to financial difficulties was confirmed in September 2008.
Eddy Merckx holds the record for victories with six, although his most painful loss also came on the hill. Merckx could only manage fourth in the 1973 World Championship road race on Montjuïc when he couldn’t follow the wheel of Freddy Maertens, opening the door for Felice Gimondi. “My worst defeat,” Merckx said in 2014. “I never got over it.”
“Eddy Merckx holds the record for victories with six”