At the start of May, the Women’s WorldTour pivots away from the one-day races, which have dominated since February, and moves into the stage race season. Rather than the frantic racing of the Classics, we’ll see the long-game strategies play out on the brutal, steep-sided valleys of the three-day Itzulia Women, through the sprints and mountain top finishes of the Vuelta a Burgos, and before that La Vuelta Femenina by Carefour.es.
Kicking off this weekend, the 2026 Vuelta Femenina is set to be the hardest yet. Offering little for the pure sprinters, every day is lumpy, the week concluding with two mountain top finishes, including the fearsome Angliru, where the winner of the year’s first women’s Grand Tour will be crowned.
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The Madrid Challenge made its debut as a flat one-day criterium. Reflecting La Course by Le Tour de France, itself the precursor to the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, the peloton raced on the finish circuit of the final stage of the men’s Vuelta.
While it initially seemed to be an afterthought to the men’s race, the Madrid Challenge developed steadily over the years, organisers adding a time trial in 2018, an extra road stage in 2020, increasing year-on-year to five days in 2022. The following year, it became La Vuelta, was extended to a week, and was moved from September to May, creating the Spanish block we have now.
There can be little doubt that these three races, and the Vuelta in particular, reflect, and even inspired a huge growth in women’s cycling in Spain. As they grew in international…
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