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Fog, mist, low cloud and sudden rain showers are usually part and parcel of every Basque Country spring – but as the riders of Itzulia Basque Country know only too well, hail, snow and even sudden spells of summer-like heat can also feature.
If the famously haphazard weather of April in Euskadi and an exceptionally top quality field in this year’s race already make it a very hard one to predict, the lack of several traditional standout features in the route adds another dense layer of Basque fog-like uncertainty to it.
Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) is the obvious standout favourite to win the same event where he took a breakthrough second place overall in 2021 behind teammate Primoz Roglic and ahead – for the first time in his career – of Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates). In the absence of the two Slovenians in the Itzulia this year, Vingegaard will be the key pre-race reference point.
The 2023 Itzulia route is anything but a familiar one: there are no summit finishes barring one short, explosive hilltop finale on stage 3, and the usual short individual time trial is also absent. Above all, the race is missing of the Basque Country’s most emblematic and decisive climbs, the Arrate, for the first time since 2008. All considered, the 2023 race a very hard one to predict indeed. Time bonuses will likely prove critical once more in a race where just 16 seconds separated the top three overall and 32 the top six last year.
Ahead of one of the leading WorldTour week-long stage races – and one of the toughest, Arrate or no Arrate – Cyclingnews takes a look at the top favourites for a Basque txapela winner’s beret come next Friday’s finish in Eibar.
Favourites
You could make a strong argument for claiming few races have been as pivotal for a Tour de France winner as the Itzulia Basque Country proved to be for Jonas Vingegaard two years ago. The Dane had previously shown flashes of WorldTour-level brilliance, winning a tough stage of the 2019 Tour de Pologne and beating Tadej Pogačar in a stage of the UAE Tour at Jebel Jais in 2021. But the Itzulia was where Vingegaard secured his first WorldTour stage race final podium alongside teammate Primoz Roglic. Later that year, he took another, even greater breakthrough with second place overall in the 2021 Tour de France.
Vingegaard arguably has a point to prove again, given he was recently subject to a stinging defeat at Paris-Nice by…
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