La Vuelta

We’ll be wishing for the end of the Vuelta a España to come for the very beginning. And it’s not out of sporting pessimism, not by any means. The 2024 La Vuelta will be a tribute to Telefónica, including a decisive stage -an almost-25km time trial, Sunday 8th September- starting at the global headquarters, Distrito, and finishing just next to the famous Gran Vía building.

That will be the last of two ITTs to be covered in the Spanish grandtour, which will start with another individual effort in Lisbon -12km, again for specialists, on Saturday 17th August-. It will be the opener to three mostly flat days in Portugal, surely under hot conditions, with finishes in Ourém (Sunday 18th) and Castelo Branco (Monday 19th). Those ones, together with Sevilla’s (Wednesday 21st), are probably the only chances for the sprinters, because La Vuelta’s long-standing tradition of endless mountain-top finishes is taking over from there until the end.

Only on week one of the race, we will be facing three significant mountain stages. There will be a big Extremadura stage on Tuesday 20th, over Cabezabellosa (Cat-1), Piornal (Cat-1), Miravete (Cat-3) and Villuercas (Cat-1) through its hardest side, concrete ramps and all. Two days later (Thursday 22nd), we will climb El Boyar (Cat-1) towards the finish in Yunquera / Las Abejas (Cat-3). And the first block of racing will come its end with a big Sierra Nevada stage (Sunday 25th), overcoming El Purche (Cat-1) and 2x the Alto de Hazallanas (Cat-1). Between those two, we will have as many chances for the breakaway, with the ‘Fourteen per Cent’ climb to Córdoba on Friday 23rd, then the Sierra de Cazorla on Saturday 24th.

In one of its usual, thousand-kilometer transfers, La Vuelta will wake up in Galicia for week two. The riders will say ‘yo me quedo for aquí’ for a couple of days in the region, as we tackle treacherous terrain on Tuesday 27th, over Mougás (Cat-1) towards Baiona, the Puerto de Cruxeiras (Cat-3) just before Padrón (Wednesday 28th) and two tough mountain finishes: Manzaneda (Cat-1), on Thursday 29th, and Ancares (Cat-1), via Lumeras (Cat-2), on Friday 30th.

Asturias will keep its traditional position as a pivotal feature of the race from Saturday 31st August, with the long Leitariegos (Cat-1) -before a León finish in Villablino- as prelude to two emblematic finishes: the impossible percentages of the Cuitu Negru (HC), on Sunday 1st September, after 2x La Colladiella (Cat-1), and the legendary Lagos de Covadonga (HC), on Tuesday 3rd, through the Mirador del Fito (Cat-1) and Collada Llomena (Cat-1).

Four stages will remain before the TT showdown. The first one is in Cantabria, a very remote sprint chance on Wednesday 4th -a breakaway looks way more likely- in Santander. We will then travel to Euskadi (Thursday 5th), starting from Vitoria and finishing at Izki, via La Herrera (Cat-1). The third-to-last stage, almost an ‘unipuerto’ day, will end atop Moncalvillo (Cat-1), La Rioja, on Friday 6th. And to end – the Queen stage! Hard to believe, with everything we will go through during this race, yet it’s +4,700m elevation and seven ascents: Estacas de Trueba (Cat-3), La Braguía (Cat-3), Caracol (Cat-2), Lunada (Cat-1), La Sía (Cat-2), Tornos (Cat-1) and ending at the Picón Blanco (Cat-1), with almost no flat all day.