Four days after the epic battle of Sierra Nevada in the 2024 Vuelta a España and over 1,000 kilometres further north in the Iberian peninsula, the Spanish Grand Tour heads back into the mountains on Thursday, in the first of four stages that could mark yet another series of turning points in this year’s topsy-turvy race.
Race leader Ben O’Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) has defined Friday and Sunday of the second week as the two most important, and on paper at least he’s probably right. In terms of terrain, Thursday’s stage 12 is by far the most straightforward, being just 137km long and containing just one, relatively uncomplicated classified ascent, the category 1 Manzaneda summit finish climb.
Even if the approach roads to la Manzaneda, from the little-known city of Ourense and across the hills of southern Galicia are rolling and narrow in places, the 15km climb of Manzaneda itself has no really tough points and could even see a small group of favourites disputing the day's honours.
Perhaps the two most critical elements will be the weather and the final section. It could turn out to be very rainy for the first time in the 2024 Vuelta a España on Thursday, and the way the road steepens notably from around 3-4% to a more constant 7% or higher in the closing kilometres could also play a factor.
The ascent itself has appeared three times in the Vuelta Femenina, all of them in 2021, once for an uphill time trial, and then for two further stage starts. However, it's only once formed part of the men’s Vuelta a España, back in 2011. The victory that day went to French Vuelta specialist David Moncoutie, while the leader’s red jersey switched shoulders from Chris Froome to Sky teammate Bradley Wiggins.
But the shift of power within the British squad was much more to do with team politics than a real indication of relative strength between the two co-leaders. Despite working for Wiggins on the higher part of La Manzaneda, a few days later Froome regained time on Wiggins on the much harder ascent of the Angliru. Then after Juan Jose Cobo was subsequently stripped of the red jersey, Froome went on to become the first-ever British winner of the Vuelta a España.
Fast forward 13 years and whilst race leader O’Connor has lost time on the shorter punchier climbs at both Cazorla and Padron, it is not anticipated he will have too many problems on the longer grind of Manzaneda. Just like in 2011, at most there should be skirmishes, with the real battles coming on stage 13 and stage 15, to the daunting ascents of Ancares and Pajares-Cuitu Neru.
“Things change now compared to the Sierra Nevada because that was one really tough stage, but these are high mountain stages that run consecutively, all the way through from Thursday to Sunday. It’s a different kind of battle,” Cyril Dessel, sports director at Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale at the Vuelta told Cyclingnews.
“However, Ben showed on Sunday that he’s in great shape physically on such difficult terrain, so we’re optimistic.”
The other crunch change in the Vuelta game this week will be the weather, with forecasts of rain on Thursday through to Sunday, which could lower temperatures. However, Dessel says that shouldn’t be a problem for his Australian leader, just the contrary, in fact.
“To be absolutely honest, I think what gets Ben the most is the heat, the fact that we’re expecting cooler weather will make it better for him,” he argued.
Dessel said, in any case, that the key thing for Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale will be to give O’Connor as much support as they can - a task that they fulfilled to perfection in Sierra Nevada, with Felix Gall staying close to O’Connor all the way to the line. The main aim, the Frenchman said, is for a repeat scenario in Manzaneda and beyond.
“The next few stages are really important for the favourites, so we’re going to try to be 100% around Ben to defend him as well as possible,” he said.
“More than anything else, our main hope is that we don’t lose any time and it’s true that the physical side of things is what counts in such battles. But above all, we want to give him all the support we can.”
