Featured image courtesy of al-khaleejtoday.net
Season after season it is no secret that the Vuelta a España is do or die for the World Tour peloton. If you’ve had a terrific year to date then the final grand tour can further cement your status as the complete champion, if not then the tour of Spain is your final roll of the dice. With nothing to show for all the training you’ve put in or perhaps an early season injury, this is a race where you can make up for past defeats and disappointments.
Above all the if’s and maybe’s, the Vuelta is the third and last grand tour of the season. The Giro d’Italia in Italy kicks it off, the showpiece is the Tour de France and now a long arduous route based in Europe’s most mountainous country is about to begin the 76th time.
As every Giro and Tour attracts the big names, the Vuelta is no different. The defending champion from the last two editions is back to rectify some wrongs and this year’s Giro champion also arrives in Spain to complete his own personal grand tour set.
Getting the most out of this Vuelta isn’t just key for the red jersey contenders. For riders and their respective teams who haven’t scored many wins this year, an opportunity now arises. Elite climbers are in abundance as well as sprinters who will certainly be licking their lips with joy at how many suitable sprint stages there are at this year’s race.
Giro complete, another Tour de France over – what can we except from the 2021 Vuelta?
For starters the defending champion from the past two editions is back to try and win a third red jersey in a row. Not since Spaniard Roberto Heras in 2005 has a rider won three Vuelta’s in succession – could Primož Roglič match his achievement? He’s a rider who is never out of the spotlight, a man who has so far achieved not only two Vuelta titles but also a Liège–Bastogne–Liège title too.
The aim for this season has been apparent, indeed it has been well documented that Roglič’s main quest is to win the Tour de France. In 2020 he came close, for this year another chance to win yellow went up in smoke after just three stages. A crash on the roads of Brittany, subsequent suffering in the Alps at the end of week one, the race out of the window and conquered by his young Slovenian compatriot Tadej Pogačar once again albeit in different circumstances.
Defeat is a bitter pill to swallow in sport. When you’ve worked hard in the early stages of the season to prepare for the Tour and it all comes crashing down, frustration and disappointment can be the only feeling. But with Primož Roglič you can never put the man down. Bouncing back in the Olympic time trial to claim the gold medal, nobody could get close to his 55-minute winning time.
Roglič has recovered to ride this Vuelta, an opportunity like so many to put disappointment behind and achieve something historic. Roberto Heras won three Vuelta titles in succession, Switzerland’s Tony Rominger did the same between 1992 and 1994, Primož Roglič could become only the third rider to do so.
How will this Vuelta go for him? Previous grand tours tell us that he takes the race by the scruff of the neck. Before this year’s abandon at the Tour, since 2019 Roglič has always ended up inside the top two on GC after week one. It won’t be beyond him to start this Vuelta in red hot form, the Stage 1 opening time trial in Burgos should see him in red right from the start. Numerous summit finishes shouldn’t be too difficult but one worry might be how he defended his Vuelta crown last year. Albeit a reduced number of stages, Primož Roglič did struggle at times when up against the likes of Hugh Carthy and Richard Carapaz, who both finished on the podium behind the Slovenian.
Jumbo-Visma will arrive in Spain with the best individual contender backed by the likes of Sepp Kuss and Steven Kruijswijk but other teams do have strong riders, including the strongest line-up who will be in real need to up their game after the Tour. The INEOS Grenadiers arrive with recent mountain biking Olympic champion Tom Pidcock, the Yorkshireman making his grand tour debut, and fellow British rider Adam Yates rides but might yet struggle because of a crash he suffered at the recent preparation race the Vuelta a Burgos. It remains to be seen if he has recovered as well as another option in Pavel Sivakov, who really didn’t impress in Burgos at all to surmount a podium place.
The main man for INEOS is Egan Bernal, this year’s Giro d’Italia champion and already a Tour de France winner from 2019. Can the Colombian be the man to topple Primož Roglič? In 2020, the year of Bernal’s Tour defence, the anticipation of a Bernal versus Roglič battle was on, until Bernal suffered his way to abandoning the race and the rest is history. This year’s Vuelta is going to be the first genuine grand tour where Egan Bernal and Primož Roglič go head-to-head. The only problem was what we saw at the Vuelta a Burgos when EF Education Nippo’s Hugh Carthy dropped Bernal atop the Lagunas de Neila. Cause for concern? Just a little.
Bernal’s form is hard to read, we didn’t really know his condition before the young man won the Giro back in May. There were doubts pinned upon him before the Tour of Italy, perhaps we’re foolish to doubt him once again. After dominating the Giro, he won pink with two time trials but no TT specialists up against him. This time in Spain with again two TT’s but a far superior contender in Roglič, Egan Bernal might struggle.
The further complication for INEOS is the addition of the new Olympic road race champion Richard Carapaz. Last year’s second-placed rider will be the likely leader if things don’t go to plan for Bernal, but nevertheless it remains to be seen as to whether both a third place overall the Tour de France and an Olympic medal have taken some energy out of him. Tiredness could rule Carapaz out of the running, but motivation might also be key too.
INEOS Grenadiers have so much firepower, the last thing they want is another repeat performance from the Tour. They have the Giro in their pocket already, the Tour escaped them for the second year running, a Vuelta victory for Bernal or Carapaz would make it a strange season indeed.
Bahrain-Victorious are another team who have to be considered as a force for this Vuelta, the team already have stage victories at the Giro and Tour, but no GC success to show for it. Huge amount of sympathy goes to Mikel Landa, who suffered from a horrendous crash at the Giro, missed the Tour, but will now feel on cloud 9 after securing overall victory at Burgos. You couldn’t be pleased more for a rider who has so much potential but is running out of time to secure an overall grand tour victory.
Third at the 2015 Giro is the only grand tour where Landa has finished on the podium, the trajectory over the years has always seen the Basque climber struggle early on but then claw his way back towards the podium in weeks two and three. An entertaining rider to watch but can he claim something special at this Vuelta? This is actually the first appearance at his home grand tour in six years. Some expectation from the Spanish fans will be placed on his shoulders.
Third overall at last year’s race was a huge moment for Hugh Carthy, a consistent rider who has a gifted ability to climb. Team leadership at the Giro last May did produce an 8th place overall, but the experience will come as added value for this Vuelta. Nine summit finishes will suit Carthy and he also has Rigoberto Urán for company in the EF-Nippo team, the Colombian looking to bounce back after his chance of a Tour podium faded in the Pyrenees.
A debut season for Romain Bardet at Team DSM has so far been mixed. He looked poised to claim only his second career stage race victory at Burgos, before he crashed and lost over a minute on the final stage. Mikel Landa took the overall win, Bardet in second, it was a case of what if. After riding the Giro and skipping the Tour, the Frenchman managed to almost squeeze himself into the top five overall, time trialling letting him down once again. You can expect Romain Bardet to ride aggressively in Spain but a similar result from the Giro is expected.
Other contenders who will have their say in the GC pile-up include Aleksandr Vlasov, the Russian riding his final grand tour for Astana before moving to Bora-Hansgrohe. It’s another grand tour where Movistar have a three up top leadership formation, Miguel Ángel López, Enric Mas and Alejandro Valverde all start, with Mas (below) being the one man who looked to be the new hero of Spanish cycling in 2018 when he took second-overall behind Simon Yates. Three years since and he’s been nowhere near the podium. Ever since this race changed to a red jersey symbolising the overall winner in 2010, only Alberto Contandor has won the Vuelta, indeed the only Spaniard to win a grand tour in the last decade.
This will be an intriguing Vuelta not just because of the overall contenders but also because the route features half a dozen stages that suit a sprinter. Surprisingly there are even stages where no climbing takes place at all! A Vuelta with quite a few flat stages is bizarre, but unsurprisingly there are plenty of sprinters lining up at the start, Deceuninck-QuickStep’s Fabio Jakobsen, Groupama-FDJ’s Arnaud Démare and Team BikeExchange’s Michael Matthews are the three main men to look out for. Alpecin-Fenix once again arrive with two sprint contenders, Jasper Philipsen, runner-up three times at the Tour, and Edward Planckaert, a stage winner in Burgos last week, both arrive to claim a grand tour stage win.
3,417 km overall from Burgos to Santiago de Compostela, this Vuelta looks set to be a scorcher of a race with blazing hot temperatures expected to exceed 30 degrees Celcius for the opening three stages. The heat will have an effect and some stages may yet see wind cause havoc.
A fascinating three weeks ahead, the 76th Vuelta finally brings grand tour cycling for 2021 to its conclusion.
