2015 sees the Vuelta a España celebrate its 80th anniversary. This is a significant milestone for cycling’s third Grand Tour, which had a difficult start: shortly after its second edition in 1936, Spain was plunged into a brutal Civil War. However, since the 1950s the Spanish stage race has gone from strength to strength.
To celebrate its eight decades of cycling history, the Vuelta will visit nine completely new summit finishes. The new features are a pointer to the future and a reminder of how, even 80 years on, Spain can continue to offer fresh cycling challenges. Then as a way of remembering its long and distinguished history of racing, the Vuelta’s third week will cover some of its best known climbs in the sierras of Avila and just west of Madrid. Finally after last year’s finale in Galicia and Santiago de Compostela, the 2015 edition of La Vuelta a España will conclude, as has traditionally been the case, in Madrid on the elegant central Paseo del Castellana boulevard.
Since 1935, the Vuelta a España has boasted winners as diverse as Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, Jacques Anquetil and Alberto Contador, who together with Italians Vincenzo Nibali and Felice Gimondi form a very select club of just six riders to have won all three Grand Tours.
Last year’s race developed into a thrilling duel between Contador and Chris Froome. Both riders had crashed out injured in the Tour de France. In their comeback race at the Vuelta a España, Contador took the lead in the mid-race time trial before making a dramatic defence of his top spot overall against Froome’s determined attacks in the mountains of Asturias and Galicia.
Now a three times winner of his home grand tour, Contador is, assuming his Giro d’Italia and Tour de France double bid goes ahead as planned, unlikely to defend his 2014 Vuelta a España title in September. However, other star names like Movistar Team’s Nairo Quintana and Alejandro Valverde - both of whom led the race in 2014 - as well as Spain’s Joaquim Rodríguez (Team Katusha), are all likely to be present as top contenders for the opening time trial in the southerly coastal town of Porto Banus on Saturday August 22nd.
Four mountain top finishes in the first week of the 2015 Vuelta a España mean that the top favourites will be in the thick of the action from the start. But a clear leader may well not emerge until the third week individual time trial in Burgos, just five days before the curtain comes down on the Vuelta a España, the last Grand Tour of the 2015 UCI WorldTour.