When Pablo Mudarra Segura (Colono Bikestation Kolbi) powered across the Gran Fondo Zona Sur finish line in Costa Rica on Sunday morning, the former Costa Rican Road National Champion savored victory after one of the most combative days the 154km race has ever seen.
The peloton rolled out of Hotel del Sur in Perez Zeledon at 05:30 in darkness, and from the outset it was “game on.” Early aggressive attacks by Alejandro Granados and Bryan Vargas tested the bunch repeatedly, with Granados soon building a solo lead of over a minute by the race midpoint before being reeled in approaching Palmar Norte.
The decisive move though came with forty kilometers remaining, when eleven riders broke clear of the peloton across rolling terrain where speeds surged up to 75 kilometers per hour. That select group – featuring 34 year-old Mudarra, Manzate La Selva Scott riders Gabriel Barrientos and Leandro Varela, freelancers Jewinson Varela Zuniga and Vladimir Fernandez Torres, as well as others – would now decide who stood on the top of the podium at days end.
A final decisive uphill sprint in the last 300 meters settled it. Mudarra showed why he is a former national champion, powering off the front to defeat Varela and Fernandez, stopping the race clock in 3:31:32.
In the women’s gran fondo, former Miss Costa Rica Karla Paola Chacon Fuentes, 35, took the women’s crown. Sprinting up the final incline to win by four seconds with an overall time of 3:58:00. Ana Mendez Camacho was next followed by Amanda Alvarado Quesada in third – a promising 21-year-old riding for Manzate La Selva No-varix.
24 year-old Ibi Salas Delgado (2:37:56) and promising 16 year-old Santiago Prendas Flores (2:35:04) won the 100km medio fondo for the men and women respectively.
Complete 2026 Gran Fondo Zona Sure results HERE
Photo Credit: La Nacion – Diana Sanabria
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