The 176 participants in La Vuelta 24, including Jay Vine, are in Lisbon, ahead of the inaugural time trial on Saturday en route to Oeiras. “I’m optimistic”, says three-time winner Primoz Roglic, as he returns to competition after a crash in the Tour de France. “Hopefully in Madrid we can celebrate”, Adam Yates announced.
Ready to roll from Lisbon
On the day after the team presentation and on the eve of stage 1, everyone gears up for the Gran Salida, including Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates), the last rider to arrive in Lisbon among the 176 participants… His wife gave birth on the 14th August and the elated Australian rider can turn to La Vuelta with ambition, already on Saturday, as he’s one of the strongest contenders for the opening ITT, a 12-km effort on the coast from the Praça do Imperio to Oeiras.
“I think we’ll have beautiful views of Lisbon on TV”, Portuguese TT expert Nelson Oliveira (Movistar Team) rejoices. “It’s a nice city and it’s really nice to start with an ITT. I’ve had a long career and to start a Grand Tour in my country is really special, with all my close friends and the fans who supported me all my career. I always do my best and I will try to do something beautiful.”
Grenadiers “can be confident”
Ineos Grenadiers come to La Vuelta with many options to chase stage wins - starting with Joshua Tarling on Saturday’s ITT - and two GC leaders: Carlos Rodriguez, 6th in his first participation in 2022, and Thymen Arensman, whose best results also came in 2022 (5th overall, stage winner in Sierra Nevada).
“Why not [dream with the overall victory]?”, Rodriguez said on Friday. “That’s what we come to fight for. We know it’s going to be difficult, there are great rivals, but we have to be ambitious and fight for the win. I have more experience now, I know what it is to face a Grand Tour and I’ve improved physically. Hopefully I can be more at the front than in 2022, feel even better and why not fight for stages.”
“It’s already my 5th Vuelta in a row, that’s quite a lot for a 24 year-old”, Arensman observed. “This race has had a very big role in my development. It was my first Grand Tour [in 2020] and it’s where I got to explore my capabilities, made it to the top 5 and won the queen stage. I also have less good memories from last year, with my crash, so there’s a bit of a revenge feeling. If we can be in the mix everyday for the stages and do a good GC with Carlos, it will be a good Vuelta. We have a strong team, we can be confident.”
Roglic: “My back should be fine by the end of La Vuelta”
“I don’t know why La Vuelta suits me, I don’t search an answer, I just enjoy!”, an upbeat Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) said on the eve of his 6th participation in the Spanish Grand Tour, where he’s claimed three overall victories and 12 stage wins. “Obviously, I’m happy to make it to the start after the Tour, to be able to come here. Leaving the Tour [due to a crash on stage 12] was really hard. I still need a bit of time before I don’t feel it, especially on my back, but I’m optimistic, and normally it should be fine by the end of La Vuelta, so I’m looking forward!”
Questioned about his well established ability to bounce back to the summits after setbacks, the Slovenian star “hope[s] it will still be true. In life, you always face challenges. I was happy to receive support and to somehow refocus and prepare for the Vuelta. Now we have to see where we really are standing and based on that we can decide how to race to get the best possible outcome. For sure, the best is to win, there’s nothing more. But it’s also about getting the best of myself and the best of my teammates.”
2 leaders for UAE Team Emirates: “We work well together”
After Tadej Pogacar won the Giro and the Tour, it’s up to Joao Almeida and Adam Yates to embody the ambitions of UAE Team Emirates in La Vuelta 24. “It would be obviously a big goal to win the three Grand Tours”, Yates said on Friday. “It would be easier if Tadej was here! We will try our best, but hopefully in Madrid we can celebrate.”
“The better riders you have on the team, the better”, the British climber assured. “We worked really well in the Tour de Suisse together with Joao. In the Tour, we had different tasks but we were also quite well together. I think we complement each other. I like to attack early sometimes and Joao usually prefers to keep his pace so I think we work quite well together.”
“Between Adam and I, there’s respect and communication, and that’s the best you can have”, Almeida added ahead of a very special opening time trial. “It’s quite a motivation [to start La Vuelta in Portugal], it’s a once in lifetime opportunity, to start in my country and to pass through my town as we do. I’m super grateful of the opportunity. It’s gonna be a hard Vuelta and everything can happen. If we have the problem of who wins, then it would be a good problem!”
Skjelmose: “My first real big test on GC”
“We are the three best climbers in the team and it’s great that we’re all here all here”, Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) rejoiced on Friday as he participated in a press conference with his teammates Tao Geoghegan Hart and Giulio Ciccone, where all three made it crystal clear the young Danish climber will be the leader. “I’m super excited, I haven’t raced a lot since the Tour de Suisse, to really prepare myself, and now this my third Grand Tour and the first real big test on GC”, Skjelmose added. “The Tour 2025 is a big goal of mine and so it’s important to do a good Grand Tour GC before that.”
“We have a super strong team so it’s nice to be here with the boys in Lisbon and I’m looking forward to getting in tomorrow on what looks like a pretty simple TT and then we have a lot of hard stages coming in the next week”, Geoghegan Hart said. As for Ciccone, “I’m here first to help Mattias after he helped me win the polka-dot jersey last year in the Tour. We made this plan in the winter. So that’s the first goal and then, we know the Vuelta is really hard, so I will try for sure if I have an opportunity.”
Groves: “It’s important to be ready from the first days”
Already a winner of 4 La Vuelta stages since 2022, including 3 last year, Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) returns for more conquests on the few sprinting opportunities in this edition. “The opportunities for me begin on stages 2 and 3 so it’s important to be ready from the first days”, the Australian sprinter said on Friday. “I come here with a team I’m very familiar with, with Ed Planckaert as my lead-out, and Maurice Ballerstedt and Quinten Hermans who we’ve worked with already in the Giro. It’s a good team with different options, especially with Quinten and Xandro Meurisse for the breakaways as well.”
Asked about his rivals in the sprints, “La Vuelta really suits Wout van Aert”, Groves said. “He’s a super versatile rider who can win hard stages and bunch sprints. A similar team to us will be Cofidis, with Bryan Coquard.” The likes of Corbin Strong (Israel-Premier Tech), Pavel Bittner (Team DSM-Firmenich PostNL), Arne Marit (Intermarché-Wanty), Jon Aberasturi (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Arjen Livyns (Lotto Dstny) also aim to perform in the sprints.
