The Vuelta enters fully this week in the first contact with the mountain after the delirious visit to the Netherlands where public attendance records were broken -it is estimated at one million people those that followed the passage of the Spanish round through Dutch lands during the first three stages – but without producing any transcendental situation in the general classification beyond the sprint victories of Sam Bennett and the control of the Jumbo team that after winning the time trial The initial team competition placed three leaders at the head of the Spanish round.
Now, everything changes in the Basque Country where the terrain of the two stages that are held in Euskadi, without being high mountains, contemplates a complicated orographic layout with small slopes and where the flat is quite scarce in many parts of the route. there will be also a lot of public with the usual dedication of the Basque fan, although the levels seen in the Netherlands will hardly be reached.
Precisely the Basque roads are now becoming the prelude to the first mountains of the Vuelta where the favorites will not be able to hide any hardship and where it will really be seen, without the support of their teammates in the team time trial, how Primoz Roglic, the main candidate for victory, is really in shape on the way to his fourth consecutive victory. Unlike other years, he arrives after having had to stop training after falling in the Tour, although, truthfully, the feeling that he has given, at least his team, has been of total security in this initial phase of the race where neither Truly, much has been seen through the absolutely flat route of the Netherlands.
The cyclists, in Vitoria
The positions with which the stars of the race to the Basque Country are presented are the same as those achieved after the initial ‘chrono’. The leaks that have occurred have been allowed and all of them captured before the end of the stage.
The cyclists arrived in Vitoria on Sunday night, on direct flights from Eindhoven, and took advantage of this Monday, in what was considered day of transfer and not of restwith all the assistants and the Vuelta staff traveling from the Netherlands through the French highways, to train around Vitoria before facing the fourth stage that will end in Laguardiain the Rioja Alavesa.
On Wednesday there are already the first slopes to begin to unclog the general a little, especially the ascent to the High of the Nursery that is faced for the last time before the descent towards the goal of Bilbao. On Thursday the contact with the mountain will continue, during the visit of the Vuelta a Cantabria. There will be the first high finish of the race, specifically at the Pico Janoa summit that makes its debut in the Spanish round and that, therefore, is presented as the first hot spot of the test.
As if that were not enough, already in Leon territory, the runners face a mid-mountain chapter with the ascent to San Glorio, the prelude to the Asturian weekend, with two consecutive summit finishes: the Colláu Fancuaya y The Praeres. There the light will begin to be seen before a new displacement from Asturias to Alicante to execute the only individual time trial of the race with the situation in the general classification much clearer than now.
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