Longstanding Grand Tour star Mikel Landa has said he has 'unfinished business' with the Vuelta a España, where after supporting Remco Evenepoel in the Tour de France, the Basque now has a chance to fight a solo GC battle for himself.
Landa will race in a different team kit from July, though, after the Soudal-QuickStep squad announced Thursday it was being rebranded as T Rex Quick-Step for the Vuelta.
T Rex is a type of glue produced by the team's main sponsor Soudal that the company are keen to promote in Portugal and Spain. The team has been duly renamed, albeit for one race only, and the jersey was given a corresponding makeover, too, with a roaring T. rex dinosaur image taking the place of pride.
As for the riders clad in the dinosaur jerseys, Landa said that after finishing a surprise fifth overall in the 2024 Tour de France, when it came to hunting down his first-ever Vuelta a España podium, he was feeling as hungry as the legendary prehistoric creature at mealtimes.
"I helped Remco as best I could in the Tour de France so I've done my homework," Landa said, before adding with a grin, "Here in the Vuelta, I'm going to be a T. rex."
Backing up his point about prehistoric inspiration, Landa appeared in the press conference flanked by his seven teammates and a human-size T. rex model, clad - almost needless to say - in the newly redesigned team maillot. Landa also said that he would try to roll back the years in other ways, too, trying to go for a Vuelta a España podium that he came closest to achieving in 2015.
"I have a bit of unfinished business here," Landa said, "I've done well in the Giro" - twice finishing third - "and in the Tour, but in the Vuelta, which I didn't race again until 2021, I would like a big result."
His surprisingly strong finish in the 2024 Tour de France, a fifth place overall matching his fifth place in the Vuelta last September, has raised the pressure, the 34-year-old confirmed. As he put it, "People have got raised expectations now."
"I've recovered well, although I'm not sure I'll have the same form as in the Tour." "But the Vuelta is a much more open race, maybe [Primož] Roglič is the key option for overall victory, but the rest of us will be up there."
"I'd like to fight for the podium and a stage, too, if possible. Picón Blanco [stage 20] would be a good stage for me because it's close to home, so too would Lagos de Covadonga [stage 16]. Not the chronos, though," Landa - whose top time trialling days are long a thing of the past - jokingly added.
"Basically, though, I would like to do as well as in the Giro and Tour de France."
For the rebranded T Rex Quick-Step, in any case, the Vuelta a España comes after an excellent Tour de France, complete with third place overall and a stage win for Remco Evenepoel, meaning that whatever Landa achieves in the Vuelta, the pressure will not be as high. But keeping the GC goals high will help them to stay focussed on the race, teammates said, even after such a successful Tour de France.
"I was motivated to come here because we are going for the podium with Mikel," Louis Vervaeke, who abandoned in the 2024 Tour de France with COVID-19 but who raced in the Vuelta a España with Remco Evenepoel in 2023 and 2022, told Cyclingnews.
"The team really wanted me to be here, and it was an honour that they wanted to have a really strong lineup. I also really like Mikel as a teammate, even when he was in a rival squad I was a fan of his. So I'm really looking forward to helping him get a good GC here."
"Also he showed in the Tour that he's in great shape, and that's also good."
On an individual level, coming back to one Grand Tour so soon after abandoning another has not been easy, he recognised, but he's confident he's managed to bounce back to good form.
"Firstly, for me, it was pretty hard for me in the Tour, but I had no chance but to leave because I was really sick with COVID," Vervaeke said.
"It was tough because I made a lot of effort to build for these Grand Tours, my second child was born in May, so I had ten days at home then went to the training camp at altitude. After all that effort to get to the Tour and then for it to go so badly for me was quite a kick in the teeth."
While there are parallels between 2023 when he abandoned the Giro d'Italia with COVID, but then returned to the Vuelta, he said, "It was different because then we had more time between the two races."
"Here when the team asked me to do the Vuelta my first idea was 'I don't know if I'm going to be ready.' But they were confident I could do it and slowly the good feelings came back."
"So this time round I had a bit of time off with the family, a few days with no bike and forgetting cycling, then spent a bit of time building up again and gently training. The last week, I've been feeling better for the Vuelta."
Furthermore, when it came to the less serious advantages of riding a second Grand Tour in a year, Vervaeke pointed out, it had given him a chance to add a maillot with a seriously unusual design to his collection of jerseys back home. Or as he put it with a grin, "I've never had a maillot with a dinosaur on it before."
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