Professional cyclists based in Girona are not allowed to train on the roads, such is the extent of the lock-down in the region as efforts intensify to bring Covid-19 under control.
However, in other parts of the country the restrictions have seemed more lax as the videos below reveal. They were posted today and compared Girona and Benidorm yesterday.
Spanish media outlets blamed tourists for the scenes witnessed in Benidorm while other parts of the country, including Girona, seemed to accept the restrictive measures more readily.
However, expat business owners suggested in media reports on Sunday that pubs would have to close to comply with the restrictions.
Some professional cyclists who set out to go training from their homes in Girona were stopped by the police and told to go home.
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The Spanish "state of alarm decree" states that people can only use public roads to buy food, pharmaceuticals and basic necessities, to go to healthcare centres, commute to the workplace, return home or to care for dependent adults or children or those with disabilities.
And while professional cyclists going training are effectively in their workplace while out on their bikes, some have been stopped and warned off trying to cycle on the roads again or face a fine.
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However, in Benidorm about 600km down the coast, the pubs were still doing a significant trade well into this weekend as the restrictions were not being enforced in the same way.
The health authorities in Spain claim if cyclists crash they will put a burden on medical services that are badly required for people suffering from Covid-19.
Carlos Mascias, the medical director of a private hospital
in Madrid, shared a video message via La Vuelta’s Twitter account explaining
the cycling ban.
“Stay at home and put the bike aside,” he said. “If any cyclist suffers an incident and needs an ambulance or an intensive care bed we are taking it away from people who really need it and who are now arriving en masse to hospitals."
Girona Vs Benidorm
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