The Vuelta is firmly the third grand tour. Few target it at the start of the season, even those that elect to ride rarely do route reconds. In a sport where so much is measured and calculated, the Vuelta is the odd one out among grand tours with its mañana vibe. This is what makes it so good, the grand tour version of Snakes and Ladders after two versions of Monopoly in May and July.
Ben O’Connor took time early in the race but even while five minutes behind Primož Roglič seemed to ride his own race. If there was a defining moment then the Puerto de Ancares saw him drop the field and more than halve O’Connor’s lead but the story was probably more one of gradual pressure with Roglič slowly cracking O’Connor and keeping the rest at bay.
Primož Roglič broke his spine in the Tour de France, although it turned out to be a transverse process fracture, so he was left with traumatic muscle pain but able to train in the build-up. His start in the Vuelta was almost last minute announcement and he came in form unknown.
UAE threatened to dominate and had a promising start with Brandon McNulty winning the time trial in Lisbon. João Almeida would be the only UAE rider to leave but illness seemed to derail the GC bids of several team mates with Adam Yates and Marc Soler taking consolatory stage wins and Jay Vine the mountains jersey and they won the team prize. Not what management would have signed for but they fared better than most.
Almeida had finished fourth in the Tour and was going to be the big rival but Covid spoilt his plans. Pro cycling has its pre and post Covid eras. To labour the obvious point this is not the public health crisis of 2020 but the virus remains contagious, see how it spreads in a peloton and the wider population alike even in summer. Crucially for sport it’s virulent enough to dampen or even destroy athletic performances. The combination means more ruined results and DNFs than before and we’ve probably got to get used to this; especially smaller teams compelled to placing their bets on one rider in one race.
Covid though wasn’t the only culprit the Vuelta was snakes and ladders there were a lot more serpents than steps. Among the others to leave the race, Antonio Tiberi got off to a strong start but was out because of the wilting heat in the opening days and if “Spain hot in August” isn’t a newsline it was still roasting beyond what we’ve had this year. Giulio Ciccone had a course that suited but quit after a freak crash after a mob deer ran across the road. Thymen Arensman, Lennert Van Eeetvelt and Cian Uijtdebroeks were among more GC contenders to leave too.
The chart shows the GC standings relative to Primož Roglič across the 21 stages. It’s the top-10 for the race and deliberately so as it shows just how few riders apart from Roglič were able to take time, Richard Carapaz’s gains to Granada just reversed the losses from earlier in the week.
Roglic’s red line on the chart is just ahead of the rest from the Lisbon opener but as we see the defining move happened on Stage 6. It was a promo day for French retail with a start inside a Carrefour supermarket and a finish to delight Decathlon. It put the village of Yunquera on the map too and Ben O’Connor in red after he took over six minutes on the peloton. There was a tactical stand-off with teams hoping others would chase; while Red Bull had Florian Lipowitz in the move up the road. But O’Connor wasn’t gifted the win nor time, he grabbed it and once the teams got going they found the Perth powerhouse unstoppable. It put him almost five minutes ahead on GC.
Exclude Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard and the margins in grand tours can be tight among the rest so O’Connor was sitting on a plump red cushion, L’Equipe called it a mattress although that’s more down to French than metaphors. Either way Roglič’s winning way has been matching his rivals in the mountains until late into the final kilometre where he surges for the stage win and time bonus. Only now instead of sniping at rivals suddenly he to go and reclaim five minutes.
A snarky write-up could claim Roglič kindly loaned out the race lead to O’Connor. Certainly Roglič could have given the lead away. But not to O’Connor, and not five minutes. But the kernel of truth that makes sarcasm work is that this did have the effect of recruiting Decathlon-Ag2r La Mondiale to the GC cause in a race that was proving hard to contain.
O’Connor’s challenge became apparent at the next summit finish where he lost 46 seconds to Roglič on the line, and a further ten because the Slovenian won the stage and its time bonus. Almost a minute in the space of two kilometres meant his red cushion was ripped, and part of its stuffing blowing around the Sierra de Cazorla.
O’Connor kept things together on the stage in the Sierra Nevada where the long, Alpine-style climbs suited. This day saw Adam Yates win the stage and Richard Carapaz reclaim two minutes on GC, the ladder for both to climb back the GC, even if Yates would soon find a snake to poison his overall bid for good.
O’Connor was losing seconds here and there with time bonuses and gaps but the Puerto de Ancares was arguably the decisive stage for the GC. Over ten minutes after Michael Woods had won from the breakaway Roglič was the first of the GC contenders with 30 seconds on Mikel Landa and getting on for two minutes on O’Connor. On the chart above you can see everyone’s lines bending downwards, this was the day Roglič feathered his own nest at the expense of the rest.
Two days later at the Cuitu Negru summit finish Enric Mas and Roglič finished together but Roglič got a 20 second time penalty. You can download the rulebook for yourself and read Rule 2.12.007-4.7 that pacing behind a team car is never allowed; you can watch racing and see it is often tolerated. The explanation here is surely that Red Bull messed up twice, the bike change was an elective decision rather than a mishap, so no blind eye to mend a mishap; but importantly the commissaires were giving instructions to the convoy at the time which the team car ignored (or charitably didn’t hear on the radio). As time penalties go in the same rulebook the team got the lightest levy and given the final result, probably no consequence.
The next day to the Lagos de Covadonga saw O’Connor valiant but his lead down to just five seconds, less a cushion and just the cover and threadbare too. With hindsight the 20 second penalty for Roglič just kept O’Connor doing the media duties, including having to go back up the climb again by car after he rode away at the foggy finish instead of going to the podium.
Stage 19 and the Alto de Moncalvillo saw the coup de grace delivered. Roglič won the stage, took back the red jersey and left the other GC contenders scattered over the mountain. O’Connor lost close to two minutes but was able to hold onto second place.
The Picón Blanco summit finish topped a tough stage but by now it just cemented the hierarchy. Rumours, since founded, spread that illness struck the Red Bull teambut Roglič was spared, twice over as he seemed fine and nobody tried to test him either. The final time trial widened the gaps for most but allowed Mattias Skjelmose climb to fifth, passing David Gaudu.
The Verdict
After one of the top pre-race picks left the race, the big contender who’d won it three times already collected a fourth victory. This doesn’t tell the full story and much of this race belonged to Ben O’Connor thanks to his winning raid in the first week and his defence added breadth to the race.
Roglič applied pressure each day and if O’Connor was valiant, he was too brittle on the double-digit gradients. But so were all the others who fell away, Roglič didn’t just take time back from O’Connor, he regularly distanced the rest. O’Connor’s big gain added a thrill and suspense to the race, at first even whether he go all the way in red? Alas it soon looked like he wouldn’t but there was more too watch and count throughout.
Weeks after crashing out of the Tour Roglič was back in red. He collects his fourth win in the Vuelta, the race he started for the first time in 2019 when he was just shy of being 30 years old but arguably triumphing each time after a setback before in the Giro or Tour so continuity again. The difference here was changing teams on the back of last year’s Vuelta, whether the leadership issues or the financial woes behind the scenes courtesy of Jumbo. Red Bull looked like novices in moments – in with the likes of impressive debutant Lipowitz they literally were – but potent elsewhere, notably with Aleksandr Vlasov and Dani Martinez applying themselves at times.
A career high for O’Connor? Surely as even if he keeps improving, the rate suggests topping second place in a grand tour is a tall order for a durable diesel. Ideally we should see this result alongside his Giro where he was fourth, results he and his team would sign for in January “with both hands” as the French saying goes.
Enric Mas was third, his fourth time podium but of course never the top step. It’s an excellent result for Mas and Movistar and this time he was on the attack, even out-sprinting Roglič on some climbs.
Richard Carapaz gets the chocolate medal of fourth place and a result his team might be happier about than him as he was back to the “GC rider” role his team had hired him for rather than picking off stages, as good as stage wins are this was a reset, a prod out of the comfort zone.
Mattias Skjelmose climbed up to fifth on the last day and was the odd one out as the rider who actually targetted the Vuelta since the winter, a rarity among riders who usually take to the start having tried a bigger goal earlier in the year. The Dane won the white jersey in a good competition and is improving, almost this time two years ago he caught the eye in the Tour of Luxembourg.
David Gaudu in sixth is a sign of consistency again but after so many other top-10 candidates were out isn’t a huge result compared to his fourth in the Tour but it’s something he can rebuild from. Florian Lipowitz finishes seventh in a breakout season and having worked for Roglič at times.
So far, so overall. Half the stages went to breakaways with wins from riders not among the overall contenders, a lot compared to the Giro and Tour. The only frustration here was Vuelta saw a degree of separation between the GC contenders and the breakaways, Pavel Sivakov ended up in the top-10 overall because of his moves but only just, it would have been fun to see more riders going up and down the GC via breakaways. The big winners from the breakaways were Kern Pharma, with two stages for Pablo Castrillo and a third with Ukro Berrade marking a remarkable month for los farmacéuticos and their Finisher range of energy products. Eddie Dunbar is also making up for lost years with two stage wins.
Kaden Groves proved the best sprinter and alas the points competition took a knock when Wout van Aert crashed out on Stage 16. Called “Grooves” by Spanish TV, he’s certainly likely to stay in the Vuelta’s groove given team mates Jasper Philipsen and Mathieu van der Poel but it means he’s got a squad drilled at leadouts and he’s picking up wins that other sprinters crave.
Among the other winners, Pavel Bittner seized his chance in the sprint. He says he’s not really a sprinter but still, he was winning bunch sprints. For a mental exercise, try ranking DSM Firmenich’s sprinters and see where you put Fabio Jakobsen among them: it’s just not been his season so far. Also no revelation, but a delivery as Stefan Küng took a satisfying win, aggressive during the road stages he finally won his first grand tour stage in the Madrid time trial.
Structurally the course design was interesting with 60,000 metres of vertical gain. The Giro and Tour have had 55km in recent years, comparable but only as a headline number. Because they have plenty of flat stages and then giant days in the mountains. This Vuelta by contrast was hilly to mountainous almost every day, 3,000m in a day could be a summit finish or a sprint stage of sorts. It’s a template for the other races were consecutive sprint finishes get decried as boring. We could say the Vuelta is a laboratory for other races but it’s something Tour boss Christian Prudhomme has said years ago already. We can see the influence on other races, even the Giro is going for shorter stages and fewer sprints.
Was the Vuelta the best grand tour of the year? Luckily we rarely have to chose between them as they’re spaced apart and each can be enjoyed. The Giro’s “fight for pink” quickly turned into a foregone conclusion but the stage contests were often lively. The Tour also turned into the Pogačar show, but only later into the race and many days had high quality racing. The Vuelta was lively, especially after the first week but if wasn’t for O’Connor the Vuelta’s red jersey contest could have been another Slovenian certainty too as Roglič never had another challenger. Just like the other grand tours this year the best sport came from the breakaway with the racing to get in it and the contest to win from it.
Roglič’s coach Marc Lamberts tells Belgian newspaper HLN his palmarés is only missing two big races: Tour de Suisse and the Tour de France so we can imagine what he is doing next summer. But if these don’t work out then don’t be surprised if he makes an announcement in mid-August again.
The untold, even by their own currently low standards, of INEOS continued, as seen from their omission from INRNGs excellent write up. No stage wins, rarely in breaks or even seen. Rodriquez once again showing his weakness over the final week of the three weeks. My outsiders view. Something here has to change, and fast, if the team are to survive.
It was a shame about Wout, who added a little sparkle to the event until his unfortunate accident.
I love the mountains, BUT maybe there were just too many this time around. There are plenty of other ways to make an event exciting.
Too much climbing indeed. GTs should allow all types to demonstrate their abilities – if you’re a top class sprinter, why bother turning up?
Whereas the five ‘Monuments’ allow a greater number of riders to challenge/ win them, from sprinters in MSR to climbers in LBL/Lombardia, the three GTs are all too similar in my view.
Not that it would happen, but different types of riders should be able to succeed in the three GTs. They should be significantly different from each other. It shouldn’t just come down to climbing, and watts/ kg……
Why shouldn’t there be a GT for classics type riders? It’s like having all tennis grand slams on the same surface, or golf’s majors all on links courses.
Because Classics riders have the Classics?
However, GT used to be more different among them, but in recent years they’ve been becoming more and more akin, sometimes for good, as in the Vuelta introducing (again) something different besides steep garage ramps and single climbs as uphill finales. Or the TDF “abolishing” its always-flattish first half in order to have more tricky hilly stages. The Giro on its part had “copied” TDF’s longer ITTs, adding some technically challenging spice, only for the TDF to copy the latter, too, but also reducing (way too much) the number of ITT kms. Now the Giro has been reducing stage length and sequences of many climbs one after another in a single stage… but I still hope it’s a one-timer motivated by very very specific reasons as it was the 2012 TDF’s course.
All in all, some changes are surely good, but I also feel that it was more interesting when each GT offered quite a different angle, although it didn’t prevent the same athletes to be competitive in more than one. The Tour was always going to be a harder challenge for, say, a Quintana (even if he could win it on the favourable 2015 course) just as the Giro was going to be harder for Dumoulin or Froome, whom made the most of their occasions on the more adequate (for them) 2017-2018 routes.
As a general idea, a GT winner must be decent or good on most terrains, which is why I wouldn’t appreciate three weeks wholly tilted in order to allow say a MvdP or even WVA to win the overall (also note that they already have some shorter stage races whose GC bid is doable for them, even some minor ones actually dedicated to them only as Renewi, Dunkerque, Belgium Tour, Deutschland Tour, Norway etc., plus some of the top ones occasionally becoming open to that sort of rider as it happened to Suisse, but even to Tirreno or Paris-Nice – then Classics men not being interested in going hard for them because of the form implications is a different matter).
Yet, for the very same reason, more Classic-like stages are welcome, at least IMHO, as part of the GT-daily menú. They tend to provide great entertainment, also, but they’ve been somewhat reduced in recent years for a series of reasons, even if several good samples were still there to be appreciated.
I absolutely agree that the GTs should all offer a different angle. I also hope that the Giro and the Tour don’t copy the Vuelta in going up and down all the time, mainly for variety, but also because of Sean Kelly’s dark mutterings: if there are fewer bumpy or flat stages, I can see why a hard working domestique or sprint lead out man might decide that he needs some extra help to get through it all. I’ve realised that the Tour and Giro both have more stages that allow people to recover a little.
Wout van Aert deserves to me a special mention. For a few days it seemed like we were witnessing him unleashing his potential again, after maybe more than a year of underperforming. Yes, the field was not so deep on this race, and so it’s easier to stand out. But he won stages, he was decimating the points jersey, he was valiantly fighting for the KOM jersey, centenaries on the wind day in day out – good old Wout that makes you admire the sport of cycling. And then the tragedy… again. Painfully again. I can’t imagine what goes inside his head at the time, and right now. It takes a tremendous champion to keep getting up after such heartbreaking falls. Let’s hope he pulls it off once again, because cycling is much more incredible with him.
“It takes a tremendous champion to keep getting up after such heartbreaking falls.”
Much like Roglic. That’s part of the reason why I greatly admire both of them.
At the risk of being clichéd or trite, when I’ve had professional setbacks in my non-athletic career, they and others before them have been inspirational.
After this Vuelta crash, I really, really want to see Wout win either Roubaix or Flanders next season. It was an awful year for him, and I hope we see him at his best next year.
@RV. Not sure he’d say “awful year”. Maybe more a years with some big lows as well as some relatively high highs (Vuelta until the crash, Olympics).
You know how to look at an half full glass, no doubt 😀 (although I doubt the glass gets even close to being half full)
I’m not saying he had a great year at all, just that awful is maybe a bit of a stretch. Crashes/injuries are as much a part of pro cycling as wins/jerseys,
Good point, especially as his injury is severe, he wasn’t just out of the Vuelta but will miss more.
Early in the race i thought Mas was strongest on the hills. Right up until he attacked and distanced everyone by nearly a minute on a mountain but lost it on the downhill with a near high speed crash. Mas does seem to need to work on his time trial though. It does seem like a lot of Spanish or south American GC riders don’t have the TT you would expect.
Why was there so few sprinters. There were quite a lot of sprint stages even without a dedicated team any sprinter with a little hill ability could have had consistent top 5’s. A lot of teams not going for GC left sprinters at home.
“It does seem like a lot of Spanish or south American GC riders don’t have the TT you would expect.”
Does it come down to an FTP watts/kg , but the kg are missing? Many of them seem to be ultra-light “fly weights” , 115-125 lbs (52-57 kg).
For the same or higher watt/kg, slightly heavier riders like Pog, Rog, or Remco will have more absolute power and demolish them in a longer TT, once the road flattens to less than 10% or so.
Tom Pidcock is very light and has acknowledged he’s not competitive against against WvA or MvdP in the muck & sand of cyclocross, since his absolute power is lower.
Then there’s Jonas Vingegaard.
Even barring his miracle 2023 show, in the earlier flatter ITT at this years’s TDF with his 4th place just shy of Roglič he was the only rider under 60 kgs over… 19th placed Simon Yates (who was 90″ away from the stage win, but still best lightweight among the rest). Then you have Buitrago in 27th place 2 mins down.
Despite Remco’s “light welter” presence (and Vingo’s and Almeida’s and S. Yates’ and Bilbao’s), the avg. weight of the top 20 was 66 kgs, 8 kgs over Jonas’ weight.
And, on the contrary, up there you have Remco, of course, but in Remco’s case the question looks rather why can’t he climb even faster (partial answer, because his monstre aero advantage isn’t as impacting on <25kmh speeds, which still leaves us without much explication about Vingegaard).
@TomH
The above of course wasn’t to mean you’re not right, quite the other way around, just that we’ve got some interesting exceptions which partly justify brent’s misinterpretation.
In fact, just have a hilly ITT and much more Latino surnames climb the classification, which proves it isn’t much about training approach etc.
And of course you can also check far from Latin countries and discover it’s not like Sepp Kuss, the Yates are great ITT men, so isn’t, say, Hindley who’s on the same level (or even a little below) of South American Buitrago or above named Enric Mas, not to speak of, dunno, Eddie Dunbar, Meintjes, … or even Woods or Jack Haig, whose weight should allow them to be more competitive.
Dani Felipe Martínez and Almeida are good examples of riders who can perform better in ITTs than you’d expect for their relatively low weight (still 5 kgs above Vingo or Yates or Buitrago).
Presently, because of random generational factors, essentially, the technical level of the ITT discipline is extremely high (unlike sprinting), and you can see accordingly that there’s no clear domain by any country. Belgium, Switzerland, Slovenia, Portugal, Denmark tend to be a little stronger, maybe it’s about being a “small” country…(although obviously Italy and UK have those big names in Ganna and Tarling).
Put Pidcock on the XC MTB, and his lack of power doesn’t disadvantage him – in fact it’s an advantage; and MvdP is the one struggling on the longer climbs.
Even in cyclocross you can see this. Courses with longer bergs, going up and down, grass and roots and no sand or mud, suit Pidcock very well.
Looking forward to the cyclocross season being just a few months away. Hoping Matthieu comes to the Dublin WC round for once. 😉
I take it you saw the total elevation gain for the Vuelta? Even some of the sprint stages had climbs that deterred sprinters.
The 2 quality sprinters that can climb a little cleaned up. Kaden groves isn’t a mountain goat.
O’Connor proved to be a worthy hare to keep everyone trying right to the conclusion.
Even if Red Bull had known of the 20 second penalty in advance they would probably have taken it. The losses in not using the cars could have been far greater suggesting the penalty was too lenient to dissuade.
As for Ineos, how long will Ratcliffe continue to tolerate such poor value for money?
Actually, I’d argue that sponsorships in cycling are massively undervalued. There are very few sports where Ineos could get more exposure for a similar level of investment. The question is whether Ratcliffe views his ROI as exposure and visibility or winning. At the beginning of the Sky project, there was a very clear objective; win the Tour de France. Sky was more successful than maybe even they themselves imagined. Looking at Ineos in 2024, it’s really not clear what their objective is. It’s also pretty obvious that Ratcliffe is much more focused on whether to build a new stadium for Manchester United than he is on cycling.
Thanks for the review INRNG. I thoroughly enjoyed this year’s race from start to finish. Whist you’re right, UAE’s GC challenge fizzled out, they made a good fist of claiming stages and animating many others with Soler entertaining us with his chaotic attacks. Great to see Kern Pharma’s riders getting career altering wins and delighting the locals and neutrals.
The Mayor of Santander won’t have been too pleased with their damp stage, but I thought Spanish and Portuguese tourism were the other big winners. I especially loved the shots of the Galician region and gave added it to my cycling holiday wish list.
Woah, you stole my name! Expect a letter from my solicitor.
@Richard S, one of you usually rides in dire (as in wet and a bit cold) weather, if I remember correctly, which means Galicia is a good choice
😉
Local weather on show at this year’s Vuelta isn’t exactly the most common, there (which doesn’t take anything away from it as a great destination).
The Vuelta is always a pleasure. I was yelling at my TV for the Kern Pharma kid vs Vlasov in the same way I was yelling for Nibali when he beat the bunch at MSR in 2018. A beautiful kind of agony played out at very different speeds.
When was the last time an invitee team had such a good race in their home grand tour?
My memory is too short!
Stage victories by wild card teams have been rare in the recent years. EOLO-Kometa won a Giro stage in 2021 and 2023. Euskadi (Basque Contry) – Murias a Vuelta stage in 2018 and 2019,
But three stages in one GC? It might not be easy to find a team that won a total of three stages within a period of a few years!
Dunno if we had other cases in the while, but my memory jumps instantly back to Giro 2008 and Emanuele “il Salbaneo” Sella, albeit that’s not exactly a promising background…
Three stage wins for Sella and one for his CSF Group-Navigare team mate Matteo Priamo.
PS 2005, with the UCI incention of the ProTour was the first year when there were wild card teams?
Also Europcar in the Tour de France in 2011 with Voeckler having a long spell in yellow and Rolland taking the Alpe d’Huez stage win, not directly comparable but the jackpot for the sponsor.
Yes! The exemplar! How could I forget.
A very thin roster for Total next year (at time of writing). Little hope of a barnstorming repeat of that performance.
I’d like to suggest the 2011 Vuelta for Geox–TMC
🙂
How can the Vuelta serve as a template for other races (i.e other grand tours) when they don’t all share the same geography? You could say Italy is comparatively pretty much as widely mountainous as Spain, but France isn’t.
Spain has huuuuge central plains as France, too (although at 600m above sea level). They just don’t care much about covering broadly as much territory as possible as the TDF and the Giro felt a little more forced to do (but look how the TDF changed its approach, too…).
There is still one element missing from the Vuelta for those of us living on the other side of the world. (New Zealand)
How can we convince them to show the full stages on TV?
For most fans from this side of the world getting to watch the Grand Tours in person is a once in a lifetime thing. So TV is all we have. The more of the action from the roll out to the post race interviews, the better. At present we do not get to see most of the starts and coming in halfway through the race is frustrating.
The Tour and Giro show everything . (although sadly the Giro’s coverage is awful, clearly directed by people who do not understand how to cover sport) how can we convince the Vuelta to do the same?
What do you mean by the Giro “coverage”? TV production of the race or anything else? ‘Cause the former is now being made by the same company as the TDF and, in this case, by the staff also in charge of Spring Classics (which to me is part of the problem).
I’d agree that RAI had a better production in terms of editing, direction or whatever (i.e. choosing what to show, when, for how long) although image quality was worse… but saying that current production is on people who don’t know how to cover “the sport” is plain false, at least if you like TDF or Flanders instead. They should be knowing what they’re doing, but… yes, I fully agree with you about the final result being disappointing.
Perhaps they’re not working at their best for whatever reason or maybe they just don’t understand *that kind* of racing which isn’t necessarily the same as at the TDF or the Classics.
Or maybe you’re just right and thinking about it a little more, quality of direction has been declining in other big races, too, TDF included, so there might be a general problem behind the scenes.
By the way, Vuelta’s TV production this year was worst ever or so (and they had a terrible record!)
“The Tour and Giro show everything . (although sadly the Giro’s coverage is awful, clearly directed by people who do not understand how to cover sport) how can we convince the Vuelta to do the same?”
People like you complained when RAI (Italian TV) did the production and now you complain about EMG which seems to do most of it these days…but somehow do a much better job on….LeTour? WTF?
It’s down to the host broadcaster, in this case RTVE who have to see the benefits of showing the race live, can they sell more ads even during the quiet times? Or are people literally already having their siesta?
One thing that feels different with the Vuelta is you can tune in for, say, the final 30 minutes and see most of the action. Not always etc but it works in this “tapas cycling” format each day while with the Tour some days you want to watch it all from start to finish and others you can tune in for five minutes.
In recent years the Vuelta has been trying to partly change that model, and successfully so, I’d say. Most of the best stages in recent editions happened on routes different from that stereotype, think Lagos and Galicia in 2021, Gredos 2019 or Granada and Yunquera this year. 2024 has had plenty of action from far, although not always conclusive, and was all the better for it.
I’ve wondered for a very long time if it would be possible to film (but not broadcast) entire races. I completely understand the commercial decisions that need to be made regarding broadcasting, but if half of a stage is never even captured for posterity, it just feels…wrong. There are so many races where things kick off early and we never get to see what actually happened. Surely there must be a way to film complete races and then make the footage available later. As it stands, large portions of races are just erased from the historical record.
Inrng – couldn’t agree more with your opening. It’s the third GT, but it’s so often an amazing race!
This version was no different. Great job to Primoz and the rest. Some farewells as well to Mate and Gesink (and others?).
Another amazing season wrapping up soon.
Good reference to Luis Ángel Maté, still going back home by bike from Madrid. Fine interviews around (in English one’s available on Cyclingnews). Personally involved in cycling as a whole (or, as he says, “for real”) as a way to change a globally unsustainable social and economic model.
Last year he had planned to ride further 800 kms from Crotone where the Adriatica Ionica Race should have ended to Filottrano, home of the late Scarponi, in order to fundraise some 1,600€ (2€ x km) for the foundation dedicated to the latter which is bringing road safety education project into the schools. The AIR raced was cancelled and his team obviously went straight back home from the starting town of Bologna. Not Maté who decided to stay and, although on a different route, i.e. North to South instead of the other way around, pedalled all the same to Filottrano and kept his fundraising project going.
(Well, Gesink is a good guy too and had to face very very hard times some years ago).
haha yeah, thanks for reminding me about Mate’s journey and the point behind it.
I’ll stay tuned for more of his fundraising for this purpose! It’s so important… everyday you hear about driving caused tragedies – Johny Hockey (John Gaudreau) is an example very close to home for me (I’m Canadian). In North America the car rules all – it’s pathetic. But, my background is dutch where the bike is god – so I long for a better treatment of cyclists here in my home.
Sorry, this is off topic, but it’s important.
Thank you Inrng for giving us a safe platform to discuss this.
Gesink has had a really solid career – from being a GT threat back when he was in his prime, to turning into a key lieutenant – often in the Vuelta. It’s so easy to forget the stories of these types of riders, but they are essential to our sport and are often underestimated.
Is this the first time all the GT winners have been from the same country?
See 1964 with France’s Poulidor winning the Vuelta, then Anquetil taking the Giro-Tour double or more recently for Spain in 2008 with Contador and Sastre or Britain in 2018 with Froome and Simon Yates.
I took so long to type my reply that you got there first! Feel free to delete this comment and the other one.
No, but it’s rare, as you would expect given most editions of the Grand Tours have been won by home riders (albeit no Frenchman has won the Tour for 40 years). There are only three other examples.
1964 Anquetil won the Giro and Tour, his compatriot Poulidor won the Vuelta.
2008 Contador won the Giro and Vuelta, Sastre won the Tour.
2018 was a British clean sweep: Froome won the Giro, Thomas the Tour and Simon Yates the Vuelta.
I thought struggling to stay on a bike was supposed to be detrimental to a cyclist’s career…
As has often been the case over the past ten years, the Vuelta did not offer the best start list, but offered lots of entertainment due to the parcours and the relative weakness of many of the teams. I loved the way the break was allowed to do their thing rather than being kept on a tight leash and inevitably smashed in the end. We got several “two for one” stages where we got to enjoy the fight for the stage win and later the GC battle. I have whined here about the lack of drama in certain other races, but I thought there was still tons of drama here, even after it appeared highly likely that Roglic was going to win fairly easily. For one thing, I never take any stage for granted when Roglic is involved, although I’m really glad he stayed upright to the end. I was sad to see Stage 20 go out like a lamb, but I think that everyone was just so cooked by that time that defense was seen as the best option. This might have been a much less exciting race if not for O’Connor’s raid, so big thanks for him for keeping it interesting to the end!
A pleasant surprice! I’ve followed the Vuelta closely before, but – after the immensly boring Giro and Tour – finally a true competitive race.
Hopefully Plastic Pog and his very dubious 3-minute-better-than-anyone-before will keep away next year as well.
Congrats to Roglic on a tough but (mostly) well-executed plan!
The actual year to year best improvement for the Vuelta was Jumbo-Farsa keeping themselves away from the red jersey battle.
Indeed! After seeing UAE-crap falter, the next best is seeing Jumbo do the same.
Very proud of BOC. Said he wanted to “finish better than 4th” and he managed to do it.
Decathlon-AG2R having a stellar year.