Teams and media have arrived in Utrecht to launch the operations ahead of La Vuelta 22, starting from the Dutch city on Friday, after the team presentation celebrated on Thursday. Jai Hindley and Richard Carapaz expressed their high ambitions as they get ready to battle for the overall victory over the next three weeks and a half. Former British winners Chris Froome (2011, 17) and Simon Yates (2018) also discussed their sensations in the Spanish Grand Tour a couple of days before the start.
La Vuelta gears up in Utrecht
Two days away from the Gran Salida of La Vuelta 2022, celebrated in the Netherlands with three days of racing around Utrecht, Mayor Sharon Dijksma and the event Managing Director Javier Guillén officially opened the headquarters in the Jaarbeurs congress center. “It’s the brain, the center of our activities where 2,000 people will come until Saturday for accreditations and where the teams attend the last meetings and comply with the mandatory antigen tests”, Javier Guillén explained. “I want to thank the organisers of La Vuelta for starting in Utrecht”, Sharon Dijksma said. “It’s the third Grand Tour with a start in Utrecht, after the Giro and the Tour, which is unprecedented. We are proud to be part of the family of La Vuelta.” The celebrations will be marked by the team presentation on Vredenburg-Platz, held on Thursday evening from 6:10 PM and broadcasted in 190 countries, ahead of the team time-trial that will see the 184 riders race through the city on Friday (23.3km).
Hindley: "We’ll play it similar to the Giro"
Already a history maker this year as the first Australian winner of the Giro, Jai Hindley approaches La Vuelta with a strong Bora-Hansgrohe line-up that fills him with confidence. “I think we’ll play it similar to the Giro”, the Australian said about his team tactics, with Wilco Kelderman and Sergio Higuita by his side. “We’re coming with three good guys for the GC battles and we’ll let the road decide. Noone in the team has a crazy ego. I know if I lose time in the first week, I’ll do everything I can for the guys still in a position for the GC and I know it will work vice-versa. It would be special to take two Grand Tours in one year, hopefully we can do that, but it’s gonna be a long three weeks. We’ll see what happens.” The first Australian rider to finish in the GC top 10 of La Vuelta was Gary Clively, back in 1977. Some 32 years later, Cadel Evans made it onto the podium in Madrid (3rd of the 2009 edition) and his compatriot Jack Haig emulated him last year in Santiago de Compostela (3rd as well). But a rider from Down Under is yet to win the Spanish Grand Tour.
Carapaz: "Try to win"
The Olympic champion Richard Carapaz is approaching with ambitions his fifth participation in La Vuelta, the Grand Tour he knows best, and where he is eagerly awaited after his second place in the Giro. "I'm happy to participate in La Vuelta one more year and to come here to try to win, which is our goal", explained the Ecuadorian leader Ineos Grenadiers. "I prepared for La Vuelta in the best possible way, I've been on the podium before and I hope to do it again. Getting back on the Giro podium was very special and I think I have enough motivation to do it on La Vuelta as well. We did a very good preparation last month and this race has been an important objective since the start of the season." Second in the 2020 edition after an intense battle with Primož Roglič, Carapaz will be supported by riders such as Pavel Sivakov, Tao Geoghegan-Hart and the young Carlos Rodríguez, a great hope of Spanish cycling. "The team focuses on Richard as a leader, he is the rider with the best results within the team and we trust him, then Tao, Pavel and I are in good shape to support him in any way and, if possible, get a good result”, Rodríguez said ahead of his debut in his national Grand Tour with the Spanish champion jersey.
Froome-Yates: former British winners eagerly return to La Vuelta
Among the six La Vuelta winners lining up in Utrecht, Chris Froome is the second most decorated, with 2 overall successes (2011, 2017). “It’s a really special race to me, where back in 2011 I had my breakthrough as a Grand Tour contender”, the rider from Israel Premier Tech recalls. “I feel a close connection with the fans in Spain and I also love what La Vuelta tests with many more uphill finishes, mountain stages and mano a mano between the best riders than in other Grand Tours.” Following his abandonment due to Covid-19 in the Tour de France, “I’m a bit unsure of where I’m at. The bigger mountain stages will be the stages I’ll be looking to try and target to be at the front of the race. But everything really depends on how the first part goes.” Another former British winner of La Vuelta, in 2018, Simon Yates (BikeExchange-Jayco) is hoping to find his best sensations in Spain: “I haven’t come back since I won so it’s great to be back. It’s a race that suits me. We need to get out of Holland safely and from there on it’s a typical Vuelta, super hard every day. You always need to be switched on, there’s never any time to rest. I like that style of racing.”
Rainbows over La Vuelta
After a two-year absence, the jersey of the world champion will shine again on the roads of La Vuelta in a surprising fashion. Although he is French, Julian Alaphilippe wasn’t selected by his team Quick Step-Alpha Vinyl to participate in the Tour de France, a few weeks after a hard crash in Liège-Bastogne-Liège. He shifted his focus towards the later stages of the season, with the clear ambition to take a third world champion title in a row, like Peter Sagan before him, on the Australian circuit of Wollongong (September 25). He aims to get better through La Vuelta, with stage wins in sight in the second half of the race. The first world champion to raise his arms as a stage winner in the Spanish Grand Tour was already a Frenchman, Jean Stablinski, the fastest in a 13-man group (including his teammate Jacques Anquetil, who went on to dominate the overall standings) at the end of stage 10 of the 18th edition, in May 1963. A total of 24 La Vuelta stages were won by reigning world champions… including 13 in 1977 for Freddy Maertens, who swapped his rainbow jersey for the amarillo one as leader of the overall standings from day 1 until the end of the race. The Belgian icon is the only reigning world champion to have won La Vuelta. The other six rainbow jerseys wearers to win stages in the year after their crowning are Hennie Kuiper (1st May 1976, in Baza), Giuseppe Saronni (28th April 1983, in Alfajarin, and the next day in Soria), Oscar Freire (29th August 2000, in Cordoba, and two days later in Albacete), Paolo Bettini (3rd September 2007, in Luarca, 4th September 2008, in Toledo, and seven days later in Suances), Philippe Gilbert (5th September 2013 in Tarragona) and Alejandro Valverde (30th August 2019 at Mas de la Costa).
