Richard Carapaz may still not finish on the final podium of the Vuelta a España on Sunday, but to judge by his emotionally charged words at the summit of the race’s final mountain stage on Saturday, for the EF Education-EasyPost rider, the position on GC does not really matter. In fact, he already considers the 2024 Vuelta a hugely positive turning point in his career.
As the 31-year-old racer explained to journalists after the finish at Picón Blanco, where a fourth place all but confirmed his fourth place overall in Madrid on Sunday, his battling ride against the other overall challengers throughout the three weeks of the 2024 Vuelta meant he could safely say his GC performances were back on track.
Up until the Giro d’Italia of 2022, Carapaz produced a steady string of top placing in the Grand Tours. A second place overall in Italy that year was preceded by third in the 2021 Tour de France, second in the 2020 Vuelta a España, an overall win in the Giro in 2019 and fourth in the same race in 2018.
However, since then GC-wise, Carapaz has had a far more uneven spell, with a major crash and fractured knee on the first day of the 2023 Tour de France notably completely wrecking that year’s race.
“I’m feeling very emotional, I think to be here with the best is a great step for me, above all I have found myself again,” Carapaz, currently fourth at 3:00 on race leader Primoz Roglič, told reporters.
“I had a couple of really bad years when I couldn’t fight for GC, so this year being up there in the Vuelta is very special for me. I think I’m back.”
For all his reservations, Carapaz had a hugely successful Tour de France in anybody’s books this summer. He wore the maillot jaune for a day in the first week at Turin - and in the process completed his ‘set’ of Grand Tour leads - then followed that up by adding a Tour de France stage win to those he'd already taken in the Giro and Vuelta. However, in the overall battle for yellow this July, he struggled.
Thankfully for Carapaz, his fourth place in the Vuelta, partly earned by a spectacularly courageous 90-kilometre solo breakaway through Sierra Nevada on stage 9 means his lean period of GC results has now ended.
That return to consistency also ensured that Carapaz was still very much in a fighting mood when he reached stage 20 of the Vuelta, readily following moves by the other GC challengers on the Picón Blanco and finally crossing the line just behind Enric Mas (Movistar) and Roglič.
“It was a very hard stage, Soudal-QuickStep put in a big effort all the way through,” he confirmed. “But everybody had really low energy levels by this point and I just concentrated on myself and doing my own race, and I came away very happy.”
On a day containing no less than seven categorized climbs, close to the summit of the mid-race cat.1 Portillo de la Lunada, TV commentators were quick to point out that Carapaz teammate James Shaw had charged away from the GC group. They wondered if this was EF setting up a Sierra Nevada-like long-range move by Carapaz. However, he denied that was the case.
“No, we just wanted to apply some pressure on the group to try to get into first place on the descent, but all the teams did the same,” Carapaz explained. “So it didn’t work out.”
Yet despite a more subdued display than usual from the ever-restless Ecuadorian racer on stage 20 - and he was not alone in that - Carapaz crossed the line with his fourth place in the bag, and above all, a sense that he could now face his future as a GC rider with considerably renewed optimism.
“I know I have lots of work to do and lots to fight for, lots of dreams to accomplish, so I’m feeling over the moon. I certainly don’t feel defeated,” Carapaz concluded.
“So I’ll keep fighting, starting with the big [stage 21 time trial] day tomorrow in Madrid, then I’ll go on to see what I can do [in Grand Tours] next year.”
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