Official website of La Vuelta
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La Vuelta is one of the leading cycling races in the international calendar. 21 stages, three weeks of competition between August and September, and more than 3,000 km covering the Spanish geography, and from other countries such as Andorra, Belgium, Fran

The Tour of Spain (Vuelta a España) starts tomorrow Saturday. In Monaco…

As we can see on the general map, despite starting in France and its dependent principalities, most of the tour will happen in the South of Spain, which is rather unusual (I believe?). In fact, there is not a single mile of stage in the Spanish Pyrenees, their foothils, or the Cantabrian Range!

Riders

The coming of Pogatchar (🇸🇮 UAE) leaves little hope about the final victory to other riders (and spectators), unless something bad happens to him. Gall (🇦🇹 Decathlon) will try to get his second 2nd place in GC this year after the Tour of Italy. Will Skjelmose (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek) and Carapaz (🇪🇨 EF) aim for the podium, after taking part in the Tour of France?

Therefore, most teams will aim for stage victories, and bring the personnel accordingly. Van Aert🇧🇪, Laporte🇫🇷, Brennan🇬🇧 and Kuss🇺🇸 for Visma! M. Pedersen🇩🇰 for Lidl-Trek. Bora brings Roglitch🇸🇮 for his vacation package.

The first 4 stages

Stage 1, Saturday 22: 🇲🇨Monaco🇲🇨

9,4 km, ITT

The distance is barely over the limit for a prologue, and they managed to avoid any sort of climb.

Stage 2, Sunday 23: 🇲🇨Monaco–Manosque🇫🇷

214 km, D+ 3000m

The first of the two French stages proposes a very hilly course, over a distance longer than any of the Tour de France stages this year. The finish may be (I don’t know) the same we often see on the Tour de la Provence in the beginning of the season, where it is usually won by sprinters who can handle punchy courses or strong uphill false-flat finishes.

Stage 3, Monday 24: 🇫🇷 Gruissan–Font Romeu🇫🇷

175 km, D+ 2600m

After a very long transfer along the French Mediterranean coast, this stage arrives already in the Pyrenees. Amusingly, the destination is basically the same as where the Tour de France entered France from Spain in July. Most of the approach is made of unbearable dozens of kilometres of a slightly then strongly uphill false-flat highway road. The final climb is pretty much the same.

Stage 4, Tuesday 25: 🇦🇩Andorra la Vieja–Andorra la Vieja🇦🇩

105 km, D+ 3000m

Familiar climbs with a finish at the bottom. The first half of the course consists of climbing the Envalira pass and coming back, which involves a lot of false-flat both ways. Riders better be ready for a direct, fast start over the uphill false-flat.

  • Deschanel2032OPM
    1·
    3 days ago

    There are 6/4/2 seconds to grab at the I.S. 36 km from the line, and of course 10/6/4 seconds at the finish.

    There are a number of more or less likely candidates to take the Red jersey today (2nd stage):

    • Hayter (🇬🇧 Soudal-QS) went into the 4-man breakaway, he needs only 1 second;
    • Laporte (🇫🇷 Visma) needs 7 seconds, he might get them though a 2nd or 3rd place at the finish and a 3rd or 2nd place at the I.S.;
    • Van Aert (🇧🇪 Visma again) needs 10 seconds, he may get them though a 2nd or 3rd place at the finish and a 3rd or 2nd place at the I.S.;
    • M. Pedersen (🇩🇰 Lidl-trek) needs 17 seconds, he might get them though winning the stage and and a making place at the I.S. and creating somewhere in the peloton a large enough split (unfortunately, I think that the 3-second rule applies today): he is pretty much doomed by 0,07 seconds, otherwise 16 seconds would have ‘sufficed’.

    First big failure for Visma and wonderful effort by Hayter🇬🇧: the base pace of the peloton was set by Visma and Lidl-Trek against a breakaway of 3 Spanish ProTeam riders and Hayter🇬🇧, which never gained a big gap, as it is usual nowadays. With a bit more than 20 km before the I.S., Visma put Armirail🇫🇷 and Kruijswijk🇳🇱 to push hard, and the gap quickly dropped down to around 20 seconds. But then Hayter🇬🇧 switched to second gear, and managed to grow the gap from 15 to 25 seconds and keep it that way! The Visma boys only lost time over the last 10-12 km to the I.S.!

    Another mistake by Visma: at the I.S., Laporte🇫🇷 lead Van Aert🇧🇪 and… instead of sticking with him, was beaten by Coquard (🇫🇷 Cofidis) for 3rd place.

    Therefore, Van Aert🇧🇪 is now 11+ seconds behind Hayter🇬🇧, thus cannot get the Red jersey only by the time bonus et the finish. And Laporte🇫🇷 also moves out of the 10 seconds limit, he is now at 12+ seconds from Hayter🇬🇧…

    Lidl-Trek had decided they didn’t care about the Red jersey.

    Regrouped after the I.S., the peloton took the form of parallel trains. Nobody attempted anything, as they all wanted a sprint. Luckily, there were no crash in the finish with the town entry.

    Van Aert (🇧🇪 Visma) attacked at 2 km, where there was a hump. He was only followed by… Pogatchar (🇸🇮 UAE). The EF behind them parked. Pogatchar🇸🇮 didn’t relay the Belgian, nor counter-attacked; Van Aert🇧🇪 wasn’t pushing very hard either in spite of the fact that they had quickly created a significant gap; they were caught up by one Astana rider and soon by the peloton.

    edit: the Astana rider was Romele🇮🇹.

    In the sprint, Brennan (🇬🇧 Astana) launched from very far, he was followed by M. Pedersen (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek) but the Dane gradually lost his wheel. Behind him was… Pogatchar🇸🇮 again! The Red jersey took him over near the line, but was at the same time overtaken by a surprise rider: Pau Miquel (🇪🇸 Barhrein) while Brennan🇬🇧 was winning far ahead.

    I am waiting for photo-finish recalculation of splits to comment on GC, because there were guys a bit everywhere and I don’t trust immediate classifications in such cases (they tend to give splits where they aren’t).

    I am a bit disappointed that nobody used the very hilly terrain (3000m of D+) at any point. They let a mini-breakaway of PT go, and when there was regrouping with still 30 km to go, every single team rode for a sprint.

    The hills were enough to create differences, we saw it when Armirail🇫🇷 lead the chase against Hayter🇬🇧: a lot of riders were dropped from the peloton.

    We also saw Cian U*.* (🇧🇪 Movistar) in trouble in the hills… I am not sure whether he had crashed or was suffering from a crash that would have happened several days ago, or both. At the same time his arm was bleeding a bit but he had scabs, so it looked like he had ripped off a scab.

    … So, they don’t seem to have changed the classification, the splits have remained. Therefore, Hayter🇬🇧 is not rewarded for his spirit and his efforts as he came behind the 2nd split. 😞

    Also, Gall (🇦🇹 Decathlon) lost time too: the Austrian is now 1′08″ behind Pogatchar🇸🇮!

    There are only a handful of riders left who can hope to get the Red jersey through time bonuses. Of those, only Van Aert🇧🇪 is (slightly) below 10 seconds. Brennan🇬🇧, Bisiaux (🇫🇷 Decathlon) and F. Fisher-Black (🇳🇿 Bora) are between 10+ and 14 seconds.