The Vuelta a Espana moves into its first serious round of mountain stages on Saturday, with three consecutive summit finishes. Rounding off will be the ultra-difficult ascent to the Lagos de Covadonga preceding a much-deserved rest day on Tuesday.
The Vuelta last tackled the Lagos de Covadonga in 2014, with Polish climber Przemyslaw Niemiec taking the win. Time differences between the favourites were minimal, with Alejandro Valverde finishing second, and taking five seconds on Alberto Contador in fourth, and 12 seconds on Chris Froome, who was sixth.
This year, though, could be a different story, as locally-born rider Samuel Sánchez (BMC Racing) tells Cyclingnews. Coming after such a tough series of opening stages in Galicia, the combination of three summit finishes - first to the ultra-steep Camperona on Saturday after a flat, long drag across the plains of northern Castille, then to Sánchez’s hometown climb of Naranco on Sunday, and finally to the Lagos de Covadonga on Monday could - he says, do much more damage
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“You always have to respect any summit finish, but the ascent to Lagos is more than half an hour long, it’s a really tough climb,” says Sánchez, who is sixth overall and with BMC Racing team-mate Darwin Atapuma in the lead before stage eight.
“Coming on the tenth stage, that’s going to hurt a lot - and the legs are already hurting after such a difficult start to the Vuelta.”
The 12.2 kilometre Lagos de Covadonga is the Vuelta’s first 'Special Category' climb and summit finish, averaging 7.2 percent. For well over a decade, from its first ascent in 1983 when Marino Lejarreta won there, the Lagos was considered the most emblematic climb of the race, often with decisive battles for the overall, until it was upstaged by the Angliru – which was first climbed in 1999. Indeed, rather like Alpe d’Huez, there is a legend that whoever leads the Vuelta at the summit will be in atop the podium in Madrid - although rather like the Alpe d’Huez legend, it’s by no means always true. Since 1997, and a win for Pavel Tonkov, victory there has gone to breakaway specialists like double Tour stage winner Juan Miguel Mercado, Russian’s Andre Zinchenkov, or Caja Rural’s Antonio Piedra rather than really big GC hitters.
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