MADRID, 24 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The presence of the Danish cyclist Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo Visma), winner of the Tour de France this Sunday, surely underpins one of the best posters in the most recent history of La Vuelta, which had already been joined, among others, by its last winner, the Belgian Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick Step), the Slovenian Primoz Roglic (Jumbo Visma) and the great Spanish hope Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates).
In the race that starts in Barcelona on August 26 and ends on September 17 in Madrid, the Dane will seek the Tour-Vuelta double, something that only the British Chris Froome has achieved in 2017. Before that, the Frenchmen Bernard Hinault (1978) and Jacques Anquetil (1963) achieved it, but in his case it was when the ‘big’ Spanish was located earlier on the calendar.
Now, in the absence of the official registrations being known, there will be five ‘big’ winners at the starting line, since along with Vingegaard, Evenepoel and Roglic, there will be Geraint Thomas (Tour 2018) and Richard Carapaz (Giro 2019).
The double winner of the Tour de France will co-lead the Jumbo with the Slovenian Primoz Roglic, another of the top favourites, who is looking for his fourth red jersey after those of 2019, 2020 and 2021 and to make up for last edition, when a fall took him away from the fight for his fourth victory.
If Roglic is proclaimed the winner in the capital, he will achieve in his case a Giro-Vuelta double that is much more difficult to see in the history of cycling. The last to do so was the Spanish Alberto Contador in 2008, while the Italian Giovanni Bataglin (1981) and the legendary Belgian Eddy Merckx (1973) also did it, these two with the order reversed on the calendar and the Spanish race ahead of the Italian. And if the Jumbo Visma triumphs, it will be the first time that a team has won all three grand tours in the same campaign.
But the Dutch squad will have a lot of opposition, starting with the defending champion, Remco Evenepoel. After his abandonment in the Giro due to coronavirus, the Belgian arrives with plenty of rest and prepared for a race that suits his characteristics and a Quick Step with hopes pinned on his leader after a discreet Tour de France.
The Spanish hopes are in charge of the second classified in 2022, Enric Mas (Movistar Team), who after his abandonment in the first stage of the Tour has focused his season on this race. The other is that of the young Juan Ayuso, who is facing a great opportunity to lead a powerful UAE, a rank that, in any case, he could share with the Portuguese Joao Almeida, third in the last ‘corsa rosa’.
Carlos Rodríguez from Granada (Ineos Grenadiers), fifth in the Tour, has not yet confirmed his presence, but it seems complicated after finishing the ‘Grande Boucle’ very exhausted, so it is most likely that his team will be led by the British Geraint Thomas, who lost the Giro in the last stage and will be another of the great attractions of the test. Colombian Egan Bernal, champion of the Tour in 2019 and the Giro in 2021, could give Dave Brailsford’s team more potential.
Among those already confirmed there are also cyclists who know what it means to win “big ones” such as the Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz (EF EasyPost), Giro champion in 2019, or the Russian Aleksandr Vlasov (Bora Hansgrohe) and with three weeks to go until the start of the first stage, it is very likely that even more high-level riders will join this excellent poster.