The 2016 Vuelta a Espana kicks off anything but gently on Saturday, with a medium length evening team time trial seemingly designed to reveal any potential weaknesses in the GC candidates and their teams, and perhaps create some important time gaps.
Unusually given the modern-day Vuelta's predilection for going uphill wherever and whenever possible, the 27.8-kilometre time trial between the Balneario de Laias thermal spa resort and the Parque Nautico de Castrelo de Mino bucks the trend by featuring virtually no climbing. Overall in the stage, there's an altitude difference of just 232 metres.
However, just like last year's opening TTT route along the Meditteranean coastline in Marbella, this opening stage route is once again close to a waterfront. In this case, rather than a landlocked sea, the 2016 Vuelta route circles one end of a massive (and when constructed in the late 1960s, very controversial) reservoir. But that's pretty much all it's got in common with 2015's semi-cancelled opening Vuelta team time trial across the sands and wooden decking of Marbella's beaches last year, which came within a whisker of being abandoned altogether because riders were worried about the surfaces being too risky. As Vuelta director Javier Guillen emphasised with a wry smile this January at the Vuelta presentation, the 2016 team time trial route "is run entirely on tarmac." - so there's no risk of a repeat scenario to 2015 on Saturday.
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However, there are other, more certain, challenges. For one thing, the 2016 route's tricky format of two long, flatter, straightforward sections alternating with two much more technical segments will make it a real brainteaser for team managements when it comes to calculating their riders' relative strengths and where to use them to their best advantage.
There is also the length of the 2016 Vuelta's opening challenge. At 27.8 kilometres this is the longest of the last six years' opening team time trials, albeit by just 400 metres on 2013's 27.4-kilometre equivalent stage - curiously also held in Galicia. The other four TTTs were far shorter, ranging from 7.4 kilometres last year in Marbella (won by BMC), 12.6 kilometres in 2014 (Movistar), 16.2 kilometres in 2012 (Movistar) and 13.5 kilometres in 2011 (Leopard-Trek).
The 2013 team time trial in Galicia is, therefore, the best reference point, given that it is - again - flat and exposed. The much more technical course of three years ago was won by Astana, although differences were comparatively small. The Kazakh squad finished just 10 seconds ahead of second placed Radio Shack (now Trek-Segafredo) and had 16 seconds on Quick Step (Etixx) in third. Sky placed fourth at 22 seconds, Movistar were fifth at 29 seconds and Tinkoff were the furthest off the pace, in the sixth spot at 32 seconds.
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