2023-08-14 08:00:09
The Vuelta a España 2023 is almost here. The queen test of cycling in our country It will cover 3,153.8 kilometers of our geography, starting in Barcelona with the team time trial and finishing off the task in the Paisaje de la Luz in Madrid 23 days later. The organization will receive the 22 teams that will be part of the Vuelta, to which it has already announced that the recent winner of the Tour de France, Jonas Vingegaard, will attend.
The starting signal of the test will take place on Saturday, August 26, the day on which the teams will have their first official contact with the 2023 route with the team time trial that will start and finish in the city of Barcelona. Three weeks later, on September 17, we will find out who wins the Spanish race when it all ends in Madrid after a flat stage of just over 100 kilometres.
The Tourmalet… is Back
Cyclists and their teams may choose to be crowned in different sports challenges this year. The most important, of course, is to occupy the first position in the individual general classification, but there are many more: from the general classification by points to the prize for combativeness (which will be awarded each day by the viewers of the Vuelta), passing through the general mountain classification or the prize for the best young cyclist, which only those runners who were born after January 1, 1997 are eligible for. There is also a prize for winning each stage. And, for their part, the teams will compete in the team classification, in which the times of their three best cyclists in each stage will be taken into account.
La Vuelta has tried to innovate in its route this year, including new names in the race’s history book. Up to 11 starts are unprecedented (Mataró, Súria, Morella, La Vall d’Uixó, Lerma, Ólvega, Sauveterre-de-Béarn, Liencres, Ribadesella, Pola de Allande and Manzanares El Real), while 8 arrivals will be incorporated into the repertoire of the test (Arinsal, Oliva, Col du Tourmalet, Larra-Belagua, Bejes, La Cruz de Linares, Íscar and Guadarrama). Precisely one of these arrivals, the Col du Tourmalet, is the roof of the Tour with its 2,115 kilometers high. Cyclists will face a maximum gradient of 13% on their ascent to the summit.
The 21 stages of the race (two rest days complete the 23 days that it will last) are divided into an individual time trial, one by teams, four flat stages, two flat with a hilly finish, six medium-mountain stages and seven mountain stages. The longest stage will be the penultimate, on Saturday, September 16, when the cyclists have to cross the 208 kilometers that separate Manzanares El Real from Guadarrama, while the shortest is the initial one, the team time trial on Saturday, August 26 in Barcelona, with a journey of only 14.8 kilometres.
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