La Vuelta

We would not have the grand tours if not for desperate men. Or to put it more precisely, desperate newspapermen. The Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a Espana were all created to increase slumping newspaper sales.

Of the three grand tours, the Vuelta is the runt, the poor little brother of the Tour and the Giro. But if you look closely at its inception, you'd understand why.

The Vuelta was first raced in 1935, 33 years after the Tour and 21 years after the Giro. The first champion was Belgian Gustaaf Deloor who had raced in Spain a year earlier and found out that racing in sunny Spain was easy versus racing in his homeland. Deloor then went back the next year and won again with his brother taking second place.

Three months later, the race was shelved due to the Spanish Civil War.

In a twist of irony, the race came back in 1941, just when the WWII started. Spain had stayed away from the war when dictator Francisco Franco didn't support Hitler. But two years later, Spain couldn't just passively watch the world events and the Vuelta again had to be cancelled.

Originally, the Vuelta was held in April and most foreign riders stayed away from it to do the Giro. The Spaniards, on the other hand, stayed away from Spring Classics and the Giro. So, it's not surprising today that Spain has yet to win Paris-Roubaix or Tour of Flanders.

In the mid 50's, the Vuelta was opened to foreigners and the who's who of cycling would finally make their mark. Raymond Poulidour, Jaques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx and Bernard Hinault would add the Vuelta to their palmares.

1987 saw the first non-European winner in Colombian Luis "Lucho" Herrera. Meanwhile, Belgian Freddy Maertens had the most dominating Vuelta in 1977, winning 13 of 20 stages and wearing the "maillot oro" from start to finish. Irishman Sean Kelly, the hardest of the hard men and classic specialist also won the race in 1988.

Probably the greatest irony of all was that Spain's greatest cyclist would fail to win the Vuelta. Miguel Indurain may have won 5 Tours but he could not translate it to even a single Vuelta win.

The Vuelta had its share of scandals, too. Scotland's Robert Millar could have won the Vuelta in 1985 had the Spaniards not colluded against him to keep the jersey at home with Pedro Delgado. Angel Arroyo won the 1982 edition but 2 days later tested positive for drugs and was stripped of the title. In 1968, the race was almost stopped when terrorists exploded a bomb on the road to Pamplona. And just last year, Roberta Heras was stripped of his record 4th win when he tested positive for EPO.

Yet, in spite of the class of the riders riding the Vuelta, the April date was preventing it from being truly a race comparable to the Tour. In 1995, the UCI moved the race to September, and the Vuelta finally had a schedule of its own. The organizers also tweaked their race by making the stages shorter but harder which made the race more exciting. In fact, two editions a few years ago was decided on the last stage. Toni Rominger and Heras shared the record for most wins, three.

The difference between the Tour and the Vuelta is the heat (40+C), the barren countryside landscape that make the race boring on TV and the climbs that are narrower and steeper which favors a pure climber than an all arounder. Finally, the roads are not as well paved as its French and Italian brothers. Poor brother or not, the Vuelta is here to stay.

NOTES.

Miami Dolphins RB Sammy Morris was suspended for four games for violating the NFL steroid policy. Make that four years if Morris was a pro cyclist.... Paolo Savoldelli, who rode for DISCOVERY CHANNEL the past two years in route to winning the Giro last year, will be moving to team ASTANA....The current golden jersey in the Vuelta is DISCOVERY CHANNEL rider Janez Brajkovic. The Slovenian is a green 22yo, 5'10 and an anorexic 122 lbs. Watch out for this scrawny kid!!!