The Tour of Spain is on!

It’s pity sometimes that the most exciting events are not as popular as the traditional professional cycling events

The Tour of Spain is one example. In the realm of cycling races, the King is the Tour de France, The Giro d’Italia and the World Championships. It is of my reckoning that the Vuelta is froth in this hierarchy.

Consider this: This third Grand Tour was originally held in April but there were very important races like the classics (Flanders, Paris-Roubaix) during that time of year that the only riders willing to ride it were, of course, the Spaniards. The Vuelta is also the youngest of the three grand tours. It was born in 1935 while the Giro and theTour started in 1909 and 1905 respectively.

However in 2014, the owner of the Tour de France, ASO (Amaury Sports Organization). However, fro its April schedule, it was moved to September by the then owners, Unipublic to avoid conflict with the Giro d’Italia. This move allowed the bigger cycling personalities to join the race.

When it was held in April, prominent general classification (GC) riders would skip the Vuelta because it would affect their performance for the Giro (held in June) and the Tour (July). But once it was moved to July some big names started to appear on the start list.

It seems as if a GC rider didn’t perform well in the Giro and the Tour, the Vuelta is a race that could salvage a season. It also was a “testing” race for those who were planning to do something spectacular the next year.

In 1998, Lance Armstrong rode the Vuelta and it made him believe that he could win the Tour the next year (which he did). He only came in fourth place behind winner Abraham Olano of Spain.

Lately though, those that were riding the Vuelta are those seeking redemption after a failed early season campaign. The last five years have shown that.

Primoz Roglic has won three of the last five Vuelta but I think riding the September race wasn’t in his plans. In 2019, he was the favorite going into the Giro but he finished third. He won the Vuelta. In 2020 Tour, he lost the yellow jersey to Tadej Pogacar during the second to last stage. He won the Vuelta. In the 2021 Tour, he crashed  and went on to win his Vuelta. In 2022 Roglic lost to a Wunderkind, Remco Evenepoel and in 2023, he gave his domestique, American rider Sepp Kuss enough of a lead to win the Vuelta. However it didn’t come without any controversy because Roglic was clearly frustrated to see Kuss winning the Vuelta. And this led to move from his team, Jumbo Visma to BORA.

As of Sunday, Roglic was just under four minutes behind Aussie Ben O’Connor, after the team made a mistake of giving him an almost 5 minute lead going into Saturday’s stage. But he was labeled to get back minutes from the band from down under.

So, the Vuelta may be the poor sibling of the Giro and the Tour but it doesn’t lack the excitement that the Tour and the Giro has. In fact, I would say that from a pure cycling viewpoint, I would say that the Vuelta is the most exciting grand tour in the world!