The 2024 Vuelta Femenina race route will feature an unprecedented stage in the Pyrenees, three mountaintop summit finishes and a showdown in the Sierras of Madrid.
The much-toughened route, extended to eight stages for the first time in its nine-year history and visiting eight different Spanish provinces, will once again start with a team time trial, this time in the easterly city of Valencia, on April 28.
But it then runs northwards into the Pyrenees, with one summit finish at the Rapatan Fort in the mountain town of Jaca on stage 5 before a second, much harder, summit finish further west at the Laguna Negra in Vinuesa, Soria on stage 6.
The most difficult mountain of all the stages, though, will be the last on May 5th, with an ascent of La Morcuera, a cat. 1 climb, preceding the summit finish at Valdesquí.
At this year’s Vuelta Femenina route presentation on Friday in Valencia, the organisers also announced the 21 teams taking part, with thirteen WorldTour teams and eight Continental squads invited.
The 2024 Vuelta Femenina Route
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The route profile of stage 1: Valencia - Valencia TTT
(Image credit: Unipublic)
The route profile of stage 2: Bunyol - Moncofa
(Image credit: Unipublic)
The route profile of stage 3: Llucena - Teruel
(Image credit: Unipublic)
The route profile of stage 4: Molina de Aragón - Zaragoza
(Image credit: Unipublic)
The route profile of stage 5: Huesca - Jaca
(Image credit: Unipublic)
The route profile of stage 6: Tarazona - La Laguna Negra
(Image credit: Unipublic)
The route profile of stage 7: San Esteban de Gormaz - Sigüenza
(Image credit: Unipublic)
The route profile of stage 8: Distrito Telefónca - Valdesquí
(Image credit: Unipublic)
At 16 kilometres, stage 1’s opening team time trial in Valencia is slightly longer than in 2023’s equivalent first 14.5km TTT stage in the nearby town of Torrevieja. But the flat route through the broad, flat boulevards of the region’s capital city will once again largely serve to establish an opening hierarchy, rather than being a major GC day.
Stage 2’s 118 kilometre run from Buñol to Moncafar will likely end in a bunch sprint, and stage 3 from Llucena to Teruel, whilst very hilly in parts, has only classified climbs, so will likely end in a large group going clear, rather than being a clearcut GC day.
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Stage 4 from Molina de Aragon to Zaragoza, the longest of the race at 142 kilometres, is an intriguing one. While flat, roads are so exposed that - as happened on an early, seemingly inoffensive, stage in last year’s Vuelta Femenina - even the slightest gust of wind could see echelons forming and the race split apart.
Stage 5 is a very different story, concluding with a cat.2 climb to the Rapatan Fort in the Pyrenean town of Jaca, a town which has seen finishes of both the men’s Tour de France and Vuelta a España. A second, even more demanding finish at Lago de Vinuesa in the remote sierras of Soria, then follows 24 hours later, meaning that with two stages to go, a clear GC leader will have emerged.
Stage 7, finishing in the province of Guadalajara at Soria, ends with a punchy uphill finale in the medieval city of Sigüenza, but the main challenge of the 2024 Vuelta Femenina is yet to come.
Just 86 kilometres long but by far the toughest, stage 8 kicks off in the Distrito Telefonica in Madrid, before tackling the daunting, seven-kilometre-long Col de la Morcuera west of the capital, prior to the even harder, 13-kilometre ascent of Valdesquí.
Last year’s winner, Annemiek van Vleuten has now retired, meaning that nine years after its first edition as a one-day race, the Ceratizit Challenge by La Vuelta, the 2024 Vuelta Femenina will have a new champion celebrating victory on the evening of May 5.
Alasdair Fotheringham has been reporting on cycling since 1991. He has covered every Tour de France since 1992 bar one, as well as numerous other bike races of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Olympic Games in 2008 to the now sadly defunct Subida a Urkiola hill climb in Spain. As well as working for Cyclingnews, he has also written for The Independent, The Guardian, ProCycling, The Express and Reuters.
