For 2024 Vuelta a España stage 1 winner Brandon McNulty, one thing always counts in a bike race, no matter what: if it’s a time trial, he’s extra-motivated, and on Saturday in Lisbon, that inner drive was maybe what mattered the most when it came to conquering the Vuelta's opening TT and taking his first ever Grand Tour leader’s jersey to boot.
There were only two seconds in it on the results sheet but the UAE Team Emirates racer nonetheless had what it takes to roar home in first place on the 12-kilometre opening TT course, narrowly ahead of the surprise provisional leader Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) and a key pre-stage favourite, Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike).
After his fifth place in the Olympic Time Trial, McNulty was clearly in flying form for his first Grand Tour of 2024. Narrowly behind Van Aert and Vacek at the mid-race time check on Saturday, the double National TT champion opened up the throttle on the long, straight dual carriageway to the finish in Oeiraas and his late charge proved just enough for the win.
As a result, the man from Arizona has followed fellow US racer Sepp Kuss wheeltracks as leader of the Vuelta a España, as well as those of teammate Tadej Pogačar, winner of the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France, as leader of a Grand Tour. All this in a year where he’s already claimed wins as varied as the GP Miguel Indurain, the Tour de Romandie and UAE Tour time trials and a stage win and overall in the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana.
But for all, he politely brushed off the idea - at least for now, if not longer-term - that he might yet further imitate Kuss and become a GC racer for the Grand Tours, there was no getting away from how huge a moment this was for McNulty in his own career, too.
“I always feel motivated when there's a time trial, especially when there's a jersey at stake,” he said. “There were good riders here, like Wout, and I was aiming for a top five, but I felt really good, and I got the victory.”
“It’s nice to be in the lead, hopefully, I can enjoy it for the few days we’ll have it. But it’s no secret or surprise that we have two very strong GC riders in our team with Joao [Almeida] and Adam [Yates] and for me, it’s all in for them. I will do all I can to help them.”
McNulty said that he had not been expecting to win, barring a major surprise, but as he also pointed out, he’s been in great form this summer and the Vuelta TT was a moment he just had to seize.
“I really don’t know if I expected it. I knew if something crazy happened I could win and I guess something crazy happened."
“I was hoping for something good today but this is hard to believe. I’ve been feeling really good in training, I really went for it in the Olympics and since then I’ve had good legs. So I knew I could do something good, but I didn’t expect to win.”
Given how simple the course was, pacing strategy was not a major issue he said. Nor yet was the fact that he had already won a time over a very similar distance in the UAE Tour earlier this year - 12.1 kilometres in the Middle Eastern race as opposed to 12 kilometres in Spain - that relevant, either. “If you’re going well in a TT,” he argued, “the distance doesn’t really matter.”
“I just felt good and went as hard as good as I could, I just had to hold on and give it everything, full on from the start."
“The Olympics was tough for me because there were super good riders. I thought I could have been on the podium and I proved [in the Vuelta] I was capable of maybe being up there [in the Olympics] too. So it’s super nice to come back from that.”
As for whether in the future he might expand his repertoire and go for a Grand Tour overall, McNulty was non-committal, commenting simply “You can never say. I see myself as more likely to do it in a one-week race.”
But for now, in any case, a Grand Tour leader’s jersey is in the bag, as well as a second Grand Tour stage win to add to the one he took in the Giro d’Italia back in 2023. Whatever the future holds for McNulty, that’s a landmark achievement in anyone’s book.
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