The Vuelta a Espana Starts Today

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The Vuelta a Espana (Tour of Spain) starts today, marking the start of 3 weeks of hard racing. The Vuelta is often considered the hardest of the three Grand Tours (Giro d’ Italia, Tour de France being the other two) thanks to more climbing and the Spanish heat. All eyes will be on the current World Champion Tadej Pogacar (Slovenia, Team UAE Emirates XRG) as he returns to the Vuelta for the first time since 2019, where as an upcoming 20-year old, he placed 3rd. Pogacar has since won the Tour de France 5 times, and in 2024 won the Giro. He needs a Vuelta win to complete the trifecta, and people are rightly asking if anyone can stop the world’s #1-ranked cyclist. A lot of the big names in cycling will be absent from today’s start list, further hindering the “beat Tadej” campaign. At just 27, Pogacar is already being compared to the legendary Eddy Merckx - in many minds he’s going to pass Merckx as the greatest cyclist ever at some point, in some minds, he already has. Like Merckx, Tadej wants to win every race available on the schedule at some point, and his palmares (resume) already rivals that of Merckx. The Vuelta was first run in 1935, and has been raced every year since 1955 (WW II and the Spanish Civil War halted the race during those time periods.) The race has its own distinctive leaders jersey (red, in this case,) Primoz Roglic (who is starting the race today) and Roberto Heras hold the record with four Vuelta wins each (Merckx won it once, in 1973.) Can Pogacar complete the hat trick, or does Primoz have a fifth victory inside him? We’ll find out starting today. It should be an interesting 21 days of bike racing. Link is to a short about Tadej’s return to the Vuelta: