Vuelta a España
This year, the Vuelta starts on Saturday from Italy, where the first 4 stages will be held, the 4th finishing in France. Curiously, there is no rest day between this Italian sequence and the following stages in Spain. In spite of the presence of a high-speed train connection between the 4th stage finish and the 5th stage location, the transfer will be by plane.
There will be 1 time bonus sprint per stage. Depending on the stage, it will either be at one Intermediate Sprint or at the top of a categorised mountain climb.
For points classification: there will be 1 Intermediate Sprint per stage, rewarded by 20 points (only the first 5 riders score points). Concerning stages victories, only the very first and last stages bring 50 points; the rest (half-half) brings either 20 or 30 points; points are always awarded to the first 15 riders.
Mountain classification (white jersey with blue dots):
- 4th cat. : 2 points (2 riders)
- 3rd cat. : 3 points (3 riders)
- 2nd cat. : 5 points (3 riders)
- 1st cat. : 10 points (5 riders)
- HC : 15 points (6 riders)
- Angliru : 20 points (6 riders)
The 5 Pro-Teams engaged are: Q36.5, Lotto, IPT, and the 2 Spanish teams Burgos and Caja Rural. Kern Pharma who won 3 stages (!) last year was not invited.
Vingegaard (🇩🇰 Visma), who has yet to win something this year, is probably the favourite for GC, with Almeida (🇵🇹 UAE) as a contender. Carapaz cancelled his participation again, after cancelling his participation on the Tour of France… Outsiders could be Tiberi (🇮🇹 Bahrein), Gall (🇨🇭 Decathlon), Ciccone (🇮🇹 Lidl-Trek), O’Connor (🇦🇺 Jayco), perhaps Gaudu (🇫🇷 FDJ) if he suddenly returns to being a pro rider.
Pedersen (🇩🇰 Lidl-trek) will go for the green jersey and stage wins. I fail to see any contender or even outsider, as there are almost no top sprinter (but Philipsen (🇧🇪 Alpecin)) or 4x4 riders (but Pidcock (🇬🇧 Q36.5) ?) on the startlist.
A snore fest.
There was nothing on the course of the stage for the breakaway. One or two climbs could have easily deserved a 4th category ranking, but no: nought.
All teams considered this stage as a sprint stage. Uphill sprint, but sprint. It went exactly the same, with all teams starting to make parallel trains (which is always 100% useless) something like 30 km before the finish, and pulling like maniacs until they cause the first mass crash.
Luckily for FDJ, Guillaume Martin🇫🇷 had already crashed and abandoned in the only short descent of the course, which allows the team to be first at something.
Roglitch*'s spirit was over the race: there was zero attack until 500 m from the line.
Gaudu (🇫🇷 FDJ), much better than expected, finishes 3rd. Other than that, the two favourites of the day, Vingegaard (🇩🇰 Visma) and Ciccone (🇮🇹 Lidl-Trek) finished on the same line, the former winning.
What else did I note?
Pedersen🇩🇰 was trying to lead his team for Ciccone🇮🇹 halfway in the climb, but was struggling hard and wasn’t very useful. He was replaced by JF. Bernard🇫🇷, whom he had replaced previously, I think.
The whole Q36.5 pulled all day until they disappeared in the crash. Pidcock🇬🇧 finished 10th; I am sure but it is likely he went down in the crash.
Zingle (🇫🇷 Visma) and I think Van Dijke (🇳🇱 Bora) were the riders who had the most difficulties to restart after the crash. Zingle needed medical assistance, perhaps to put back in place a dislocated shoulder. edit LOL: I hear that his bike got stolen during the operation 🦹♂️
So, it looks like it wasn’t stolen, but had been put into the sweeper car.
However it may have been among the 18 Visma bikes that were stolen during the following night 😆