Vuelta a España preview
August 19, 2011 9 Comments
The 66th edition of the Vuelta a España, the last of cycling’s three Grand Tours, gets under way in Benidorm on Saturday and concludes three weeks later with its traditional finish in the centre of Madrid. Defending champion Vincenzo Nibali returns in search of a second Vuelta victory against a field packed full of big names, including two-time winner Denis Menchov.
The route
Like last year, this year’s route is designed with climbers in mind, with six summit finishes and a number of other difficult ascents. It is also designed to throw challenges at the riders right from the start, with the first high summit finish coming as early as the fourth day and several other late climbs scattered throughout the first week ready to catch the unprepared.
Unusually the race does not venture into either the Pyrenees or Catalunya this year, although it does make a return to the Basque country after a 33-year absence. In total, the race features ten mountain stages – including six summit finishes – and nine flat stages, with just two time trials (one team, one individual) which bookend a punishing ten-day opening stint which will most likely see the effective elimination of several contenders before the first rest day.
This race starts with a short 16km team time trial around Benidorm, and is then followed by ‘flat’ stages on five of the next six days. However, only stages two and seven are traditional sprinters’ days. Stages three and six each feature categorised climbs in the final 20km which will make life difficult for pure speedsters such as Mark Cavendish, while stage five finishes on the uncategorised but murderous ascent of Valdepeñas de Jaén, where long-time overall leader Igor Antón won last year.
Stage four sees the first – and highest – of the six summit finishes, at the Sierra Nevada ski resort in Andalucia, with the line at 2,112 metres. This climb was last visited in 2008, where David Moncoutié won en route to his first of three consecutive King of the Mountains titles. Coming so early in the race, one or more of the general classification contenders could easily lose big chunks of time here.
Stage 4 profile
After the sprinters have had their day, the race takes a distinctly uphill turn. A rolling eighth stage ends with a short, sharp shock at the finish in San Lorenzo, where the punishing final climb features ramps of up to 28% in gradient. Stage nine is a more traditional high mountain stage, with a flat run to the 1,970-metre high Sierra de Bejar. A tricky individual time trial on an up-then-down 47km course in Salamanca will provide a stern challenge for tired legs before the peloton is afforded a pause for breath at the end of ten gruelling days.
After the long opening stint, the middle ‘week’ of the race is just five days long, but includes a decisive sequence of four mountain stages and three summit finishes. Stage 11 takes the race back to Galicia for the first time since 2007 and concludes with the 30-kilometre climb of La Manzaneda, which is new to the Vuelta. After an ordinary transition day – the sprinters’ only opportunity between stages seven and 16 – the riders will spend one final day in Galicia which features two first-category climbs but a benign 50-kilometre run to the finish in Ponferrada.
The next two days, however, will most likely mould the final general classification into shape. Stages 14 and 15 will be painful for everyone, with each featuring a second and first-category climb before hors catégorie summit finishes at Lagos di Somiedo (a Vuelta debutant) and Anglirú. The latter is a beast of a climb – regarded by many as the toughest in Spain – which features a savage section between six and 12km averaging 13.8% (kilometre 11 alone is an eye-watering 17.5%). It is more than a match for anything the Giro or Tour have to offer, and with the second rest day following immediately after it is likely to prove to be the key battleground on which the race is won and lost.
Stage 15 profile
The closing stretch, while hardly straightforward, lacks an obvious headline-grabbing profile. Stage 17 finishes with the HC climb of Peña Cabarga, on the approach to which Antón crashed out of the race lead last year, while stage 19 sees the Vuelta return to the Basque region after a 33-year absence with a stage finish in Bilbao. The penultimate stage includes two first-category climbs, but these will be negated by a flat run-in of nearly 50 kilometres. And the final stage, of course, is the usual processional affair with the sprinters taking centre stage as the peloton completes several circuits of Madrid city centre.
The men to watch
Nibali returns to defend last year's win
This year’s Vuelta can boast arguably its strongest line-up in several years, with the ranks of GC contenders swelled by several top riders who were forced out of the Tour de France early on.
2010 champion Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Cannondale) is back to defend his title, and will face a strong Spanish contingent led by Igor Antón (Euskaltel-Euskadi), who crashed while leading last year’s race on stage 14, and Joaquim Rodríguez (Katusha). Antón had raced sparingly this year but won on the Zoncolan at the Giro, while Rodríguez finished fifth in Italy and took strong second places at Amstel Gold and Flèche Wallonne behind Philippe Gilbert, who has been unbeatable in the hilly classics this year.
Denis Menchov opted for the Giro-Vuelta combination when his Geox-TMC team did not receive an invite to the Tour. The 2005 and 2007 champion has raced a light programme this year, but finished a useful (if somewhat anonymous) eighth at the Giro. Michele Scarponi (Lampre-ISD) was second behind Alberto Contador at the Giro and has been in good form all season, but has yet to finish in the top ten in Spain.
All of the above had always intended to ride the Vuelta, but the list of genuine contenders is swelled by the presence of Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Omega Pharma-Lotto), Bradley Wiggins (Sky) and the RadioShack pair of Janez Brajkovič and Andreas Klöden. All started the Tour in excellent form, but none finished it after a succession of crashes. Their current condition is uncertain, but each is capable of challenging for a podium position.
Will we see more of this from Cav over the next three weeks? (image courtesy of Graham Watson)
Despite the distinctly hilly finishes to a number of the flat stages, the world’s best sprinters are also well represented here. In their farewell Grand Tour before the team’s dissolution, HTC-Highroad will feature a three-pronged sprint attack. Mark Cavendish will look to add to his two Giro and five individual Tour stages in defending his 2010 points classification victory. Matt Goss – winner of Milan-San Remo – will come to the fore on the hillier finishes. And 22-year old John Degenkolb, twice a winner at this year’s Dauphiné, will be an effective plan B should either of his more senior teammates falter. The team will also be favoured to repeat last year’s victory in the team time trial, which could put Cavendish in the overall leader’s red jersey for the first two or three days.
Cavendish will face plenty of competition though. The Garmin-Cervélo squad of Tyler Farrar won the Tour’s team time trial and the American (a three-time winner at the Vuelta) also took his first individual stage in France this year. J J Haedo has run Cavendish close in the past and will be free of the need to support absent Saxo Bank-Sungard leader Contador. Marcel Kittel (Skil-Shimano) won all four bunch sprints at the recent Tour of Poland. And the powerful Peter Sagan (Liquigas) is also a notable threat, although he is more of a direct rival for Goss on the lumpy finishes which require strength as well as speed. Similarly, the strength and experience of Óscar Freire should not be underestimated.
Cancellara will be the hot favourite for the stage 10 ITT
In the mountains classification, David Moncoutié (Cofidis) returns to target a fourth consecutive win but will face stiff competition from the GC contenders and any of a dozen or more Spanish climbers. Fabian Cancellara will be expected to top the time sheets in the individual time trial, although his arrival in Spain has been delayed after he was hospitalised by a bee sting.
Antón is the bookies’ favourite (ahead of Nibali) to make up for last year’s disappointment and claim his maiden Grand Tour win. Although I think any of the top five or six contenders could win a closely-contested race I find it hard to disagree with the odds-makers, not least when you look at the strength of the Euskaltel team, which is packed full of top climbing talent.
The sprinters’ and mountains classification are even more open. Cavendish may well win the most stages, but given the lumpy nature of many of the stages he may struggle to match the consistency of strong men such as Sagan. Will Moncoutié make it four in a row? At 36, this may prove to be a year too far, although his legs should be fresh having ridden a relatively light programme in 2011 including a fairly minimalist effort at the Tour, which he appeared to use more as a tune-up for this race.
So there you have it. A mouth-watering line-up of talent and a course which will remorselessly seek out any weakness in the riders. The Vuelta may be the youngest and the least prestigious of the three Grand Tours, but it is a thrilling race which never fails to deliver incredible drama. Miss it at your peril.
The 2011 Vuelta a España begins in Benidorm on Saturday and concludes in Madrid on Sunday 11th September. I will be writing occasional posts reviewing key stages and relevant topics during the race.
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