Where does this year’s Vuelta a España begin? It starts on Saturday, so it shouldn’t be too oblique a question. It’s not a Spanish city, like Bilbao, Barcelona or Burgos, it’s not even a city on the Iberian peninsula, like it was last year, with Lisbon. No, it’s Turin, in Italy.
If you knew that already, then congratulations. If you didn’t, don’t feel too disheartened – the fact surprises me every time I remember it. It’s the sixth time the Vuelta has started overseas, but the third time in four years (after Utrecht in 2022 and Lisbon in 2024, who could forget), as the race tries to make a mark for itself. There is the Grand Départ in Turin, but then three more stages in Italy, and even France, before the race enters Spain itself, and then there is a further excursion to Andorra across stages six and seven. This is the Tour of Spain, remember.
News editor at Cycling Weekly, Adam brings his weekly opinion on the goings on at the upper echelons of our sport. This piece is part of The Leadout, a newsletter series from Cycling Weekly and Cyclingnews. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. As ever, email adam.becket@futurenet.com – should you wish to add anything, or suggest a topic.
The race of novelty and extremes doesn’t end there. There is a 20km team time trial on stage five, only the second WorldTour TTT this year, and the first in a Grand Tour since the Vuelta in 2023. No other Grand Tour has had a TTT since 2019.
There are 12 stages out of 21 with over 3,000 metres of climbing, something which the Tour de France has only done once this century, and the Giro d’Italia hasn’t at all. As a result, it is an unrelenting race, with a summit finish on the second day, with nine more to follow. Nine!
This is the Vuelta trying to stand out, to be something different, to offer a different product to that of the Giro and the Tour, to cut through to a slumbering cycling audience in late August. After the Classics, the Giro, the Tour, and now the Tour de France Femmes too, there is a bit of a lull, which the Vuelta is unfortunate to find itself in, before the World Championships ties up the season at the end of September. This might sound reductive, and there are other races through the year, but this is how many cycling fans, especially casual ones, see the calendar.
This is why the Spanish Grand Tour has to try new things, why despite being in its 80th edition this year, it…