When I first saw the 2024 Vuelta a España route, it was apparent that this was going to be a race of two distinct parts. The first nine days of searing dry heat in the south of the country and the second part an equally uncomfortable but humid affair that winds its way eastwards from Galicia after the first rest day. It shouldn’t be as hot, but the northern regions are greener for a reason and can be much more unpredictable when it comes to the weather. The road surfaces aren’t always great either, but that’s still to come and there’s a lot that’ll happen before then.
Now that we’ve had the first of the nine summit finishes, Primož Roglič, the pre-race favourite, heads the standings and shows no signs of the injuries which saw him abandon the Tour back in July. The steepest slopes of the Pico Villuercas were exactly the kind of terrain where the Slovenian is so effective and most of the other GC contenders were left with no illusions as to how big a task it’s going to be to stop the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe rider taking the overall victory. The German team set out their stall early on and weren’t really challenged for control of the stage, which is all the more worrying as the next few mountainous days are likely to be more of the same.
For the moment, there are three squads that appear to have the resources to dictate the tactics in the coming stages – Red Bull, obviously, as well as UAE Team Emirates and Visma-Lease a Bike.
For UAE, the potential of a leadership squabble between Adam Yates and João Almeida appears to be settled in the favour of the Portuguese rider. With Yates almost two minutes off the pace after only one TT and one mountaintop finish, any friction within the team looks to be smoothed over. With Juan Ayuso left out, this is Almeida’s big opportunity to lead at a Grand Tour, the start in Lisbon providing extra motivation to maintain the focus needed to achieve that goal. With Pavel Sivakov, Jay Vine and Yates expected to be in the GC group on the longer climbs, UAE have tactical options that their rivals might not.
At Visma, defending champion Sepp Kuss has had his usual slowish start. He delivered an average TT performance and he was missing a little of the top-end needed power to make the front group on stage 4, but he ought to get better as the race goes on. He’ll be glad to see that Wout van Aert is on form as it takes some of the pressure off his shoulders and it ought to keep him nearer the front and out of trouble when things get hectic. With such a hilly route, Van Aert already looks assured of winning the points classification even though Kaden Groves is pushing him for now.
The other good points are both Spanish, which will please the home fans no end. Enric Mas was able match Roglič at Pico Villuercas and he is now third on GC with more favourable climbs to come. He can certainly hope to be on the final podium but whether he can improve on his three second places at the Vuelta will be another matter. Roglič might have his customary bad day but then so might he. For now, though, Movistar have to be happy.
Then there’s Mikel Landa. Yes, his time trial was atrocious but if he had been better placed at the foot of the climb on stage four he would have been part of the Roglič/Almeida group much earlier. Less than a minute down is nothing because experience tells us that he gets better and better into the final week. He won’t mind some cooler weather once they get further north either.
Lotto Dstny being in GC battles is a rarity, and yet Lennert Van Eetvelt could well be the revelation that the Vuelta often turns up. He won the UAE Tour at the start of the year, beating Ben O’Connor, but he was with Roglič and Mas when the race exploded into life on Tuesday and he never looked in trouble. If he hadn’t celebrated too early the stage win would have been his and not Roglič.
The could do better list at the Vuelta might well be a long one by the time it finishes. The early signs for Ineos’s Carlos Rodriguez aren’t good, and neither are the GC hopes of Cian Uijtdebroeks, Richard Carapaz or Ben O’Connor. Luckily for Decathlon-AG2R, Felix Gall is riding well as is Bahrain’s Antonio Tiberi. Lurking in the background are the Israel Premier Tech pair of Matthew Riccitello and George Bennett, which gives the team some GC thoughts alongside Corbin Stromg’s hopes of a stage win.
It’s early days but the organisation's decision to have even more climbing than usual has had two consequences. Firstly, hardly any sprinters are on the start and even fewer will make it to Madrid. Secondly, the excesses of the third week mountains are in everyone’s mind. That’s going to put a dampener on a lot of people going on the attack until the GC battle becomes much clearer.
The likes of Euskaltel-Euskadi and Kern Pharma are still going to get in the long range breaks, though they likely won’t succeed until those WorldTour teams with interest in a classification join the adventure. It’s going to be a long three weeks for some people.
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