If you want to save a click, Pogačar.
The Route
“A mountainous Vuelta” is hardly news but the race ratchets up every year and this edition has 58,000m of vertical gain, more than the Giro and Tour. Much of this achieved on a daily basis rather than set-piece high mountain stages.
There are time bonuses of 10-6-4 seconds at the stage finishes. Plus 6-4-2 seconds at the intermediate sprint and also for several mountain passes marked “B” for bonus on the stage profiles.
The Contenders
Tadej Pogačar (UAE) is the obvious favourite to the point where the GC race feels as if it will have all the thrill of tracking a parcel delivery online. We’ll see if Pogačar can take the lead by Andorra and then watch the logistics of the red jersey as it travels around Spain before the scheduled delivery in Granada on 13 September. There’s always the possibility of the package being dropped or lost en ruta but it’s hard to find weakness in Pogačar here. One concern is his lack of preparation, since 1995 and the Vuelta’s switch to the end of summer, the Tour-Vuelta double has only been won once (Froome, 2017). Plenty in the peloton will hope he comes in hot and quickly takes a dominant lead, the better to ensure he can back off in the third week to aim for the Worlds and this leaves opportunities for everyone else. This includes his team mates with last year’s runner-up João Almeida, last year’s mountains winner Jay Vine and 20 year old Pablo Torres. As easy as it sounds for him, there’s a touch of pressure as he’ll want to tick off this win in order to ensure he doesn’t have to come back again and to complete the grand tour triple in the same season as Vingegaard.
The harder part is picking among the other podium contenders. Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) has the record of four Vuelta wins but his record of results in recent races suggests the 36 year old is fizzling out, he’d surely sign today for a podium finish and a stage win along the way, this is a lot to ask for but he can pull it off. His team bring sprinter Jordi Meeus and also puncheur Finn Fisher-Black, with first-year pro Luke Tuckwell worth watching after his impressive Romandie and Aura Tour rides.
Richard Carapaz (EF) is suited to the race but his team are downplaying his chances saying they don’t have much of a squad to support him but the likes of James Shaw, Markel Beloki and Georg Steinhauser can play big roles here with the latter hired in part by UAE for next season to do this role.
Felix Gall (Decathlon-CMA CGM) got a podium in the Giro, gifted with a stratospheric Vo2 Max he’s improved his race craft to become a less volatile rider able to and will aim to do his race again but as good as the Giro was it showed his limits and two time trial stages are a challenge. Matthew Riccitello and Léo Bisiaux ride in support and with Gall set to leave, we’ll see the two younger climbers given opportunities too.
Oscar Onley (Netcompany-Ineos) got a win in the Vuelta a Burgos, a triumph after crashing out of the Aura Tour in July and he could still improve in form since. The challenge for him is the big set-piece mountain stages with longer summit finishes but in-between then he’s a handy rider for sharper summit finishes. Carlos Rodriguez is worth watching too, if only to hope he can find form after seeming to fade over the last two seasons.
Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) was his team’s best rider at the Tour despite losing time on the opening day and working for Ayuso so some consistency and he could do well but backing up after the Tour is hard, especially as his team is built more around Mads Pedersen and Thibaut Nys.
Enric Mas (Movistar) has never finished lower than sixth in his last six Vueltas so would you bet on him finishing inside the top seven this time? He achieves this by riding his own race to the point where it looked like he forgot how to win during the last Giro so he surely won’t trouble Pogačar. Cian Uijtdebroeks starts with a need to reach Granada just for the short-term goal of finishing a grand tour for the first time since 2023’s Vuelta, but also the longer game of building for 2027 by finishing the season.
Vuelta a porvenir
If the names above must feel stoic about their chances of the win against Pogačar, they at least can hope to crowd out the rest of the field. The Vuelta has long been used to give neo-pros the experience of a first grand tour – Pogačar among many – but the hard route compounded by UAE’s pace-setting makes it a tough introduction, there are few obvious “rest days” where the bunch will trundle towards a bunch sprint.
To add to names above like Torres, Tuckwell and Bisiaux, look out for former Avenir winner and youngest rider in the race Jakob Omrzel (Bahrain), Jarno Widar (Lotto-Intermarché), Jørgen Nordhagen (Visma-LAB), Juan Guillermo Martinez (Picnic-PostNL), Darren van Bekkum (XDS-Astana) and new neo-pro Juan Felipe Rodriguez (EF). In a field where a third of the field are eligible for the white jersey there are plenty more names.
Tapas cycling
If the peloton might complain about the relentless route, TV viewers on their sofas have it better. Plenty of stages look lively, many have a climb in the final 30 minutes to spice up the finish so there’s often something to watch to the point where instead of suggesting several stages as must-watch days like a Tour or Giro preview features, it can pay to tune into most days but do this by nibbling on the day’s finish rather than feasting on hours of live.
TV broadcast
It’s on RTVE/tdp for locals and VPN users, Eurosport across much of Europe, Peacock in the US, Flo in Canada, SBS in Australia and the race website lists more broadcasters here. The opening and final stage finish around 7.30pm CEST, all the other days are forecast for 5.20pm CEST.