VUELTA A ESPAÑA
ESTABLISHED 1935 EDITIONS 74
The Vuelta used to be an afterthought, even when it was the first grand tour of the year. However, the 21st century has seen it settle confidently into a late summer slot that makes it a possible second peak after the Giro d’Italia, or the chance for revenge after a poor Tour de France. There’s no longer a sense of inferiority with the race - the contenders are the same riders who contest the Tour and Giro, and the Vuelta has also finally found its signature colour and identity in the rojo jersey of the race winner, which has successfully replaced the imitative yellow of the 20th century and the insipid attempt at gold in the early 2000s. The race has also been surfing the wave of innovative route design that has been crashing over cycling recently, with the inclusion of short, sharp mountain stages and especially televisual super steep climbs. For 2020 it’s headed north out of its home country for its second start in the Netherlands following the 2009 trip to Assen.
Utrecht will host the first stages, as it also did for the 2015 Tour de France.
The 2019 Vuelta, it is acknowledged, lacked the unpredictability and suspense that makes for a great race.
The early skirmishes were promising, but really, everybody waited to see by how many minutes Primož Roglic would win the mid-race TT, and then spent the second half of the race not being able to overcome the advantage that the Slovenian rider built there, notwithstanding an outbreak of excitement on the flat, crosswind-hit stage to Guadalajara. This year, they’ve put a few more difficulties and traps into the first part of the race and saved the time trial for stage 16, by which the climbers will have had ample time to put some distance between themselves and riders of Roglic’s ilk. The key appointments will be a trio of tough middle-mountain stages on stages 4-6 and the looming shadow of the Col de Tourmalet, which comes on stage 9, before the first rest day. The second week also has its fair share of climbing, but just as with the first, the organisers have saved the best until last, with an intimidating stage 15 which finishes atop the impossibly steep Angliru. And the third week is similarly punctuated with a tough climb - the penultimate stage finishes on the Alto de la Covatilla - less steep and spectacular than the Angliru and Tourmalet, but still a complicated challenge. The winner will be a thoroughbred, and the route design means that a repeat of 2019’s procession is unlikely. Sometimes in cycling, last is not least.