Primoz Roglic is the defending champion of the Vuelta.
AFP
A departure from Italy, four states crossed and two time trials including one by teams: the route of the Tour of Spain unveiled Thursday in Madrid offers variations to its traditional mountain orgy in the hope that this will end up convincing Tadej Pogacar to align.
We have known since the beginning of December that this 90th edition of the Vuelta would start from the Italian region of Piedmont which will host the first three stages in their entirety from August 23. We now know the rest of the course, presented Thursday evening at the Palacio Municipal IFEMA in Madrid, and it has some originalities.
After Italy, the peloton will make a short stop for one day in France, climbing the Montgenèvre and Lautaret passes, well known by the Tour de France, before descending towards Voiron, a town of 20,000 inhabitants in the ‘Isère, which will become the 15th French city in history to host a stage of the Vuelta.
The riders will then board a plane to head to Spain – transfers increasingly criticized for their carbon footprint – in order to compete the next day in the fifth stage, a 20-kilometer team time trial at Figueres, city known for housing the Salvador Dali museum. This very spectacular collective exercise has become rare on major tours.
The next day, it’s time for the first major mountain stage which will arrive in Andorra, the fourth state crossed by the Vuelta in 2025.
For its 90th anniversary, the Tour of Spain wants to “pay homage to tradition by including a few passes that have marked its history”, such as Morredero, Cerler or Valdezcaray, notes its director, Javier Guillen.
More recent, but already cult, climbs are also part of the menu, including the terrifying Angliru, one of the most difficult climbs in the world, which will await the riders during the 13th stage, the longest of the 2025 edition.
In total, five high mountain stages and six medium mountain stages are on the program.
With four days to go, Valladolid, the city that hosted the finish of the first stage of the first Vuelta in 1935, will host a potentially decisive individual time trial. Knowing that a final mountain stage going up to Bola del Mundo is planned for the day before the final arrival in Madrid on September 14.
The organizers hope that this route will please Tadej Pogacar. The Slovenian, third in 2019 for his first and only participation, said he would wait for the routes of the Vuelta and the Giro d’Italia, which will be revealed in January, to decide which of these two grand tours he will compete in 2025 in next to the unmissable Tour de France.
(afp)
