The Vuelta Femenina will continue to expand in 2024 - with another day's racing added to make it eight stages in total, while three summit finishes, one more than last year, and a team time trial all expected to feature.
The full route, running from Sunday 28th April to Sunday 5th May, will be published on 8th March in a mid-morning ceremony due to be held in the Vuelta Femenina’s stage 1 start city of Valencia.
Following last year’s ascent of the Lagos de Covadonga by La Vuelta Femenina, a well-established summit finish in the men’s Vuelta a España, there have been rumours of a dramatic last stage finish atop the nearby Angliru, widely regarded as Spain’s single hardest climb.
However, while the race finale is anything but clear, with various options still remaining on the table, Cyclingnews understands the Angliru is not one of them.
What is certain, according to AS, is that the three summit finishes in 2024 will all take place on climbs which have already featured in previous editions of the men’s Vuelta a España.
Other early information about the route revealed by AS on Wednesday is that there will be a repeat of last year’s team time trial. The TTT was held last year as the opening stage in Torrevieja, a coastal town in the Valencia region, and was won by Jumbo-Visma - now known as Visma-Lease A Bike.
The race will also visit eight different provinces of Spain, full details of which will be revealed on Friday’s 11:30 ceremony, along with all the names of teams, including those to be invited, who are set to take part.
The expansion of La Vuelta Femenina to eight days and its toughened-up route represents the latest development in a race which only began in its full week-long format last year but is proving to generate a great deal of interest.
The Vuelta Femenina first began as a single-day race in 2015, held on the same day as the last stage of the Vuelta a España in Madrid, gaining WorldTour status in 2016.
It became a two-day stage race in 2018, doubling that total of race days in 2020 and 2021, then increasing to five in 2022 and seven in 2023.
The 2024 Vuelta Femenina will automatically have a new overall champion in its palmares as last year’s winner, Annemiek van Vleuten, has now retired.
