After an edition of the Vuelta a España in 2023 which included mountain-top finishes with the emblematic status of the Tourmalet and the Angliru, designing a 2024 route to live up to last year’s glittering standards was always going to be a difficult ask for race organisers Unipublic.
But as race boss Javier Guillén put it on Tuesday evening’s race presentation of the 2024 Vuelta route, by sticking to their usual strategy of mixing tradition – in this case multiple summit finishes – with innovations like reviving the flat final day time trial, he believes they have found the perfect way of ensuring the race continues to remain as attractive and intriguing as ever to both spectators and riders.
A spectacular start in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon with a time trial alongside the mighty River Tagus will certainly make for a memorable opening stage. And after the return to Spain, the challenges come thick and fast. There is a first summit finish on stage 4, and plenty of rugged terrain for the breakaways, tough mountain stages both in the deep south and the remote northwest, and a respectable number of flat stages – six – for the sprinters.
Here is Cyclingnews‘ take on the five key GC stages of next year’s race – although as Sepp Kuss proved at Javalambre last year, if there’s one Grand Tour where opportunities to go for the win always appear at almost any point in the entire route, it’s the Vuelta a España.
Stage 9
Sunday August 25: Motril to Granada, 178km
If anybody knows why the GC contenders should be worried about stage 9 of the 2024 Vuelta a España, it’s former pro Alejandro Valverde. Back in 2006, on exactly the same last, long descent from Sierra Nevada down to Granada that will feature in the finale of the 2024 stage, race leader Valverde was tracking his closest GC pursuer Alexander Vinokourov. Somehow, perhaps being undergeared, he lost the Kazakh’s wheel – and with it, as the gap stretched wider and wider between the two, the Vuelta itself.
Coming at the end of the first, long week of the 2024 Vuelta rather than the middle of the third like in 2006, next year’s contenders can take comfort that if they make any errors or suffer time losses on that day, they will have plenty of opportunities down the line to get back into the GC fight.
On the other hand, the route for the 2024 stage through Sierra Nevada and down to Granada is much tougher than in 2006, and the chances…
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