The Vuelta a Espana’s official launch today has confirmed that with the hardest stages packed into the second week, an outright winner could be decided long before the peloton finally reaches Madrid and the Vuelta’s final stage on September 11th.
The 2016 Vuelta a Espana will have ten summit finishes, one more than in 2015. Unlike last year’s race, where all the summit finishes were crammed into the first two weeks, they will be more spread out, starting with the ultra-steep Mirador de Ézaro in northwesterly Galicia on stage 3 and concluding on stage 20 at the long, draggy Alto de Aitana, nearly 1,100 kilometres away.
The first week of racing will be on rugged roads through the region of Galicia and “there’s not a metre of flat in this area,” pointed out 1986 Vuelta winner and local star Alvaro Pino, starting with a medium-length 29 kilometre team time trial, that will likely see some initial gaps emerge. But the Vuelta’s second week will probably prove the most decisive for the overall classification.
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That second week’s action starts on stage 10 with an ascent and summit finish at Lagos de Covadonga in the northern Picos de Europa mountain range. Lagos de Covadonga is widely rated as one of Spain’s most difficult single climbs and has regularly featured in la Vuelta since the early 1980s. This time round, it is the first of the 2016 Vuelta’s three Special Category final climbs.
Then after a rest day, stage 11 runs along the Asturian coastline through tricky, constantly undulating terrain that concludes with an ascent to Peña Cabarga, scene of Chris Froome’s memorable duel against 2011 Vuelta winner and local rider Juan Jose Cobo, and also where Vasil Kiryenka took Sky’s one stage win in the 2013 Vuelta a Espana.
A third straight tough day of racing takes the Vuelta into the Basque city of Bilbao on stage 12, with a double assault of the Alto del Vivero in the closing kilometres, and a fourth hard day on stage 13 - the longest of the 2016 Vuelta at 212 kilometers - runs through constantly undulating terrain and has no less than seven classified climbs, finishing in the Navarran hill town of Urdax, close to the French frontier.
2016 Vuelta a Espana: Race stages
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