Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates) already left his mark in the history of La Vuelta with an outstanding performance to win stage 1 and claim La Roja as the first leader of the 2024 edition, on Saturday. With an average speed of 57.2km/h to cover the 12km from Lisbon to Oeiras, he achieved the fastest time-trial ever in the history of the Spanish Grand Tour. McNulty narrowly edged Lidl-Trek’s Mathias Vacek (+2’’) and Belgium’s Wout van Aert (+3’’) to pursue the USA rule on La Vuelta, after Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike) won the overall in 2023.
The Sun was flamboyant over Lisbon and it provided a spectacular setting for a historical day, as the Portuguese capital hosted a super fast time trial for the 5th Gran Salida outside of Spain in the history of La Vuelta. Race veteran Luis Angel Maté (Euskaltel Euskadi) was the first rider to start in front of the Jerónimos Monastery, next to the Belém Tower, at 16:23. And the first contenders immediately showed impressive speeds.
After 22 riders had completed the 12-km course on the coast towards Oeiras, Edoardo Affini (Visma-Lease a Bike) led the way with an outstanding average of 56.6km/h (12’43’’), already smashing the fastest average ever achieved in a La Vuelta ITT (54.1km/h when Samuel Sanchez won stage 20 of the 2007 edition, over 20km).
Tarling comes short, McNulty takes off
The intensity of the wind increased along the afternoon, with strong gusts blowing from the north-west. British wonderkid Joshua Tarling (Ineos Grenadiers), the ITT European champion, nevertheless started with a very strong pace. He was 3’’ ahead of Affini after 7.3km… But he eventually finished 0.28’’ behind, as he couldn’t resist the Italian over the last 4.7km, more exposed to the wind.
Still, there was room to improve Affini’s time. Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) was the first to do so, with a significant margin of 5’’. But that was not enough to resist Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates), who maintained an average speed of 57.2km/h to set the best time: 12’35’’, 2 seconds faster than Vacek. Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike), the last rider on the road, claimed the 3rd best time, 3’’ behind McNulty.
