2025 Vuelta a España route woos Tadej Pogačar with ascents of Angliru, Bola del Mundo and third-week ITT

December 20, 2024

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The 2025 Vuelta a España route appears to be like tailored for a potential participation of Tadej Pogačar with 10 summit finishes, an ascent of the legendary Angliru and an extended, late particular person time trial, all parts that might appeal to the UAE Staff Emirates champion.

Revealed on Thursday night in Madrid’s IFEMA commerce and congress centre, the 2025 Vuelta a España additionally kicks off for the primary time in Italy and – nearly equally as uncommon – contains a staff time trial halfway by the primary week.

But extra historic components characteristic within the 2025 route, like stage 18’s particular person time trial in Valladolid, a metropolis steeped in Vuelta time trial historical past and with victories towards the clock by champions of the calibre of Tony Rominger, Bernard Hinault and Raymond Poulidor. And the inclusion of one other massively emblematic summit end, the Bola del Mundo, simply 24 hours earlier than the end in Madrid, may additionally assist Pogačar go for the Vuelta a España over a return to the Giro d’Italia subsequent season.

Putting a markedly worldwide word for its eightieth version, the Vuelta visits a record-equalling 4 nations in 2025, getting underway in Turin, Italy on August 23, earlier than going to France, Andorra and, after all, Spain. The Vuelta has not visited so many nations since 2009, when the race started in Assen, Holland, then briefly visited Germany on stage 3 and Belgium on stage 4 earlier than returning to dwelling soil.

Nonetheless, a primary main summit end at Pal in Andorra on stage 6, a fair more durable Pyrenean stage to Cerler the next day, and one other well-known Vuelta summit end at Valdezcaray on stage 9 may properly show far more vital long run. Then the second week kicks off with a bang, too, with a return to Larra-Belagua within the Pyrenees, the scene of Remco Evenepoel’s revenge victory within the 2023 Vuelta after his defeat on the Tourmalet simply 24 hours earlier.

First launched in 1999, ever since then the 12.5 kilometre, slender, poorly-surfaced and agonisingly steep ascent has produced some epic GC battles. For Pogačar, successful on the tenth ascent of the Vuelta’s best-known and most daunting climb – and the place his idol Alberto Contador introduced down the curtain on his profession with a shocking solo win in 2017 – would certainly signify yet one more main excessive level in his already glittering palmares.

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