It is 20 years since the Vuelta a España was moved, controversially, from a late April date to its current slot in late August and early September. The notion then was that the Vuelta would offer a chance for those who disappointed in the Tour de France to salvage something from their seasons and that it would act as a build-up event to the world road race championships at the end of September.
Recent history would suggest that the first goal has been achieved: last year Chris Froome and Alberto Contador competed in the Vuelta after crashing out of the Tour – with Contador riding to a spectacular win – and 12 months on both Vincenzo Nibali and Nairo Quintana line up, as does the promising American Tejay van Garderen. All three fell short in July but they face the same challenge now, as Froome attempts to become the first man to win the Vuelta and Tour since the Spanish race was shifted in the calendar.
The key issue for contenders since the change has been how much physical and mental fortitude they can dredge up close to the end of a long season. Geraint Thomas, for example, starts alongside Froome but he began his season in late January at the Tour Down Under and has been on the road ever since, including a full Classics campaign in March and April, and the cumulative effect of so much racing and travelling could well hamper his chances of performing at the stellar level he achieved at the Tour.
While Quintana had a lengthy break from racing and travelling back in May, Froome faces a similar issue to Thomas, if less acutely: he has been winning races since the end of February, when he kicked off his season at the Ruta del Sol, and he has not held back since winning the Tour last month, competing in several one-day criteriums, the short, lucrative exhibition events held around Europe.
His victory in the Tour and the fact that the Vuelta includes a decent-length time trial – unlike the French race – make him the favourite on paper but in 2012, after finishing second to Bradley Wiggins in the Tour de France, he enjoyed similar status on starting the Vuelta, but crumbled as the race progressed. In form terms both Nibali and Quintana looked to finish the Tour in fresher condition than the Kenyan-born Briton.
The Vuelta looks a far harder nut to crack, even if Froome can muster the form he found in July. The climbs are shorter and steeper, all the nine summit finishes are new to the race, including Sunday’s steep pull up to the Alto de la Mesa, close to the vertiginous cliff-face pathway known as the Caminito del Rey. The multiple mountain stages – particularly the trio of mountain finishes on stages 14 to 16 – will create a wealth of opportunities for rivals, led by Nibali and Quintana.
Nibali’s rivalry with Froome was turned into pure soap opera at the Tour, when Froome expressed – in no uncertain terms – his annoyance at the Italian’s stage winning attack in the Alps at a moment when he had a mechanical problem, and the pair’s unhappy relationship could be an intriguing sub-plot in the next few weeks.
Nibali heads a full-strength Astana squad that includes the Italian climbing talent Fabio Aru and the young Basque Mikel Landa, who jointly stretched Contador in the Giro d’Italia in May. Sky, on the other hand, fields a team which does not have the climbing strength of its Tour squad, apart from the Colombian Sergio Henao, a definite back-up leader if Froome falters.
Given its place in the season, the Vuelta boils down to who is the last man standing but that is not meant to be taken literally, hence the decision not to include Saturday’s team time-trial opening stage in Marbella towards the individual classification on the grounds that the course is unsafe to race on. The stage will be run, but will be essentially meaningless as it will boil down to a separate event where the favourites will have no cause to press hard on the pedals.
This is not unprecedented – the prologue time trial of the 1978 Tour de France met a similar fate due to torrential rain – but it reflects poorly on the race organisers. The issue was a stretch of unmade road along the Marbella sea front where the deep sand meant that riders ran an obvious risk of crashing.
Froome’s Sky team mate Nicolas Roche posted a picture of his back wheel carving a groove in the sand, with the caption, “Vuelta ttt!!!! are you joking”. Other areas of concern included ramps, a section along a rubber mat on one of the beaches, and the finish on a narrow raised platform on another beach.
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