Remco Evenepoel and Primoz Roglic renew their rivalry at the Vuelta.(Image credit: Getty Images)
The 2023 edition of the Vuelta a España may well boast the strongest slate of contenders in the race’s history, with the defending champions of all three Grand Tours on the start line in Barcelona on Saturday.
Tour de France winner Jonas Vingegaard’s presence is the most intriguing, as he seeks a rare double, and his cohabitation with Jumbo-Visma teammate and Giro d’Italia winner Primož Roglič will be one of the key subplots of this race.
A year ago, Roglič was the man most likely to deny Remco Evenepoel overall victory until a crash ended his challenge in the third week. Now Evenepoel arrives at this Vuelta as the man with unfinished business after a bout of COVID-19 forced him out of the Giro while wearing the maglia rosa.
But this is a race of multiple contenders, with riders like Juan Ayuso, Geraint Thomas and João Almeida all quietly confident of making an impact between here and Madrid. Ahead of the race, Cyclingnews takes a closer look at the favourites for this Vuelta.
Primoz Roglic won the Vuelta a Burgos. (Image credit: Getty Images)
In ordinary circumstances, Roglič and Roglič alone would be the outstanding favourite for this Vuelta a España due to both his pedigree and his form. The three-time winner knows the particular exigencies of this race better than any other contenders, and he has a 100% record in stage race so far this season after victories at Tirreno-Adriatico, the Volta a Catalunya, the Giro d’Italia and this month’s Vuelta a Burgos. Only one man – Alberto Contador in 2008 – has won the Giro-Vuelta double since the Grand Tour calendar was reformatted in 1995, but Roglič looks well placed to succeed where Vincenzo Nibali came just short a decade ago.
The biggest obstacle to a record-equalling fourth triumph, however, might well come from within the Jumbo-Visma camp. Jonas Vingegaard was on another plane to
all comers at the Tour de France and if he reaches similar levels in Spain, Roglič might find himself consigned to a supporting role. The pair set out from Barcelona as joint leaders, mind, and Roglič’s ability to snare seconds in hilltop finishes might give him an early advantage. The stage 10 time trial will be pivotal for his ambitions.
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Jonas Vingegaard returns to the Vuelta for the first time since 2020. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Vingegaard’s superiority at the Tour brooked no argument and it seems very clear that he has not elected to ride the Vuelta simply as a deluxe domestique for Roglič. He announced his intention to compete on the final weekend of the Tour, and Jumbo-Visma have insisted that it was always the team’s plan to field both Vingegaard and Roglič in Spain.
The Dane’s lone Vuelta experience to date came in the pandemic-delayed edition of 2020, when he finished 46th overall while riding as part of the Jumbo-Visma squad that helped Roglič to overall victory. This time out, Vingegaard starts as co-leader of the Dutch squad and it will be fascinating to see how he fares on the stage 3 summit finish in Andorra. He hasn’t turned a pedal in anger since the Tour finished five weeks ago, and the men who competed in Poland and Burgos might be tempted to test his race-readiness.
Combining the Tour and Vuelta in the same year is a delicate balancing act, and it took Chris Froome repeated attempts at the double before he eventually pulled it off in 2017. Vingegaard, however, has all the appearances of a quick learner.
Remco Evenepoel returns as defending champion (Image credit: Getty Images)
The defending champion has been slightly overshadowed in the build-up by Jumbo-Visma’s double act, but it would be foolish in the extreme to write off Evenepoel, even though the route appears rather less amenable to him than it was a year ago. The Belgian’s performances at Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the opening week of the Giro suggested that he had reached another level in 2023, and he has recovered well from the case of COVID-19 that ended his Italian expedition so abruptly.
Evenepoel returned to action with third place at the Tour de Suisse before winning the Belgian title, the Clásica San Sebastián and the time trial at the World Championships. His defence of his road title in Glasgow ended in disappointment, but that was perhaps only to be expected. The explosive, city-centre circuit was hardly suited to a man who had been preparing at altitude for the long ascents of the Vuelta. His clash with the Jumbo-Visma pair in Spain will be a fascinating watch and will, perhaps, offer some pointers for his Tour de France debut in 2024.
Juan Ayuso impressed at the Tour de Suisse. (Image credit: Getty Images)
After placing third on his debut a year ago while still a teenager, Ayuso returns to the Vuelta with designs on going a step or two further, despite the lofty opposition. Injury delayed the start to the Spaniard’s season until late April, but he was quickly up to speed, winning the time trial at the Tour de Romandie and then adding two stages at the Tour de Suisse, where he also placed second overall.
Ayuso hasn’t raced since he crashed at the Circuito de Getxo in late July, but he evinced confidence about his condition earlier this week. Unlike the other contenders on this list who have all lined out at either the Giro or Tour, Ayuso has spent the entire year building towards the Vuelta. He already demonstrated his powers of endurance with a fine third week in 2022 and one imagines that experience will stand to him this time out.
Geraint Thomas at the Tour de Pologne. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Like Germany in a major football tournament, Thomas is the man who can never be written off in a Grand Tour. The Welshman has raced in eight Grand Tours since he was formally released from super domestique duties in 2017. Four of them – the 2017 Giro, the 2017 Tour, the 2020 Giro and the 2021 Tour – were either ended or compromised by crashes. He had clear runs at the Tours of 2018, 2019 and 2022, and this year’s Giro, however, and he finished on the podium each time.
A day after losing the Giro at the last on Monte Lussari, Thomas had already turned his attention towards the Vuelta, a race he has competed in just once before, placing 69th in 2015. Thomas was largely anonymous at the Tour de Pologne and he was a distant 10th in the Worlds time trial, but that’s scarcely a cause for alarm. His pre-Giro form was nondescript, but he proceeded to produce a consistent three weeks that also netted him final overall victory. The Vuelta is a different kind of challenge, but the 37-year-old will be in the picture all the same.
Joao Almeida was second overall in Poland. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Ayuso understandably draws the eye in the UAE Team Emirates line-up, but João Almeida’s quiet consistency in Grand Tours has been evident since his debut season, when he placed fourth overall at the Giro after leading the race for over two weeks. He finally made it to the podium this year and he was even in contention for overall victory until the dying days after his fine stage win atop Monte Bondone.
Now 25, the Portuguese rider looks to have moved up another level in a season that has also seen him place second at Tirreno-Adriatico, third at the Volta a Catalunya and second at the recent Tour de Pologne. Last year at the Vuelta, he found himself riding predominantly in the service of Ayuso, but he still had the wherewithal to claim fifth overall for himself. They will form a redoubtable double act at this Vuelta, and the UAE roster also features an intriguing third man in the shape of Jay Vine, who rode strongly at the recent Vuelta a Burgos despite a crash on stage 2.
Aleksandr Vlasov placed on the podium of the Clasica San Sebastian. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Vlasov was among the many riders to fall victim to illness during a most attritional edition of the Giro, and he is now looking to make amends at the Vuelta. He can certainly draw encouragement from his display at the Vuelta a Burgos, where he finished second overall behind Roglič, with the team time trial and time bonuses accounting for his final, 39-second deficit. He was also third at the Clasica San Sebastian in late July.
The Russian’s Grand Tour career to date has been pockmarked by untimely abandons, but when he lasts the course, he tends to ride with quiet consistency, placing fourth overall at the 2021 Giro and fifth at last year’s Tour. He leads the line for Bora-Hansgrohe here, though it will be fascinating, too, to gauge the progress of 20-year-old Cian Uijtdebroeks, who lines out for an eagerly anticipated Grand Tour debut.
The Vuelta, Banesto manager José Miguel Echavarri liked to say when the calendar was redrawn in the 1990s, is for those who failed in July. The ‘Holy Family’ continues these days under the Movistar banner and the management of Eusebio Unzue, and the maxim still holds true. After crashing out of the Tour on the opening day in Bilbao, Enric Mas lines up at the Vuelta looking to salvage a subdued season.
A string of solid displays in the Spring – 5th at the Ruta del Sol, 6th at Tirreno-Adriatico and 5th at Itzulia Basque Country – suggested Mas was on course for the Tour, but then a disastrous Dauphiné raised questions about his preparation. The Tour crash meant the debate was moot: the Vuelta is now make or break for his season.
Mas, mind, has the fortunate habit of bouncing back from Tour disappointments in his home race. He followed last year’s Tour abandon with second place overall at the Vuelta, the same position he finished in 2021 and 2018. Against a field of this depth, however, it is difficult to imagine that Mas will be the man to end Spain’s nine-year victory drought.
Somehow, four years passed between Dunbar’s first and second Grand Tour appearances, but the Irishman made up for lost time with a fine display at the Giro in May. After riding in the service of others at Ineos, Dunbar was signed as a leader by Jayco-Alula, and his Giro performance justified their faith. Although he would slip to 7th overall in the Monte Lussari time trial, the Banteer man was one of the few riders to live with the eventual podium finishers in the final week.
Given that injury had ruled Dunbar out of action in February and March, there were murmurs that Jayco-Alula would dispatch him for a Tour debut in July, but instead he was withheld to lead the line at the Vuelta. He warmed up for the race with 7th overall at the Tour de Pologne, and he arrives at this Vuelta after completing the first full-length altitude camp of his career. The 26-year-old has ample margin for improvement, in other words.
Landa will ride in the service of Evenepoel at Soudal-QuickStep next season, but the Basque sets out as the leader of Bahrain Victorious at this Vuelta. The race has never smiled on Landa before – last year’s 15th place was his highest-ever finish, and his lone flash of brilliance was his stage win in Andorra back in 2015 – and he downplayed expectations earlier this week. “The team wants me to go for GC, but I’m not very sure,” he said.
Still, after a disappointing Tour de France, Landa will be keen to leave some kind of a mark on a Vuelta that might also be his final Grand Tour with this degree of freedom. He shone early in the season, with second at Itzulia Basque Country and third at Flèche Wallonne, and he will need to recapture that form here if he is to make an impression against Roglič, Vingegaard et al.
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Barry Ryan is Head of Features at Cyclingnews. He has covered professional cycling since 2010, reporting from the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and events from Argentina to Japan. His writing has appeared in The Independent, Procycling and Cycling Plus. He is the author of The Ascent: Sean Kelly, Stephen Roche and the Rise of Irish Cycling’s Golden Generation, published by Gill Books.
