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Published on Wednesday, 09 August 2017 17:13

2017 Vuelta a España

Can Froome land the elusive double? 

After a Tour de France that to me was one of the most boring wins from a most boring man on the most boring team, on a most boring route, it's safe to say that we are hoping for better fare from this year's Vuelta a Espana! 

The Tour may have seemed exciting with the race coming down to the last TT and there only being a handful of seconds up until the final day, but it really was pretty dull. If you try to compare it to this year's Giro, there was just no comparison, the Giro was one of the best races I have seen in quite a while. The Tour was one I will be happy to forget. And betting wise? It was pretty boring too. I managed to eke out the smallest of proifits overall over the three weeks.. 

The 2017 Vuelta a España actually starts in Nimes in France this year and it spends its first three days on foreign soil, before finally entering Spain on stage 4. The race starts with a 13.8km Team Time Trial in Nimes but we are sure to see the first shake-up on the GC on stage 5 with the first of 9 summit finishes on the race to Alcossebre.

It's an interesting route this year with some brutally hard climbs along the way, but it actually has less summit finishes than last year's ten, and the final TT on the penultimate stage could still play a major part in this race, despite all the climbing. 

It was a real Colombian affair in this race last year as Colombian riders held the red jersey for 17 of the 21 stages, with Darwin Atapuma taking the lead of the race between stages 4 to 7 and Nairo Quintana taking it on stage 8. After passing it briefly to QuickStep's Davide de La Cruz, who won stage 9 in spectacular fashion for us at 125/1, Nairo regained the jersey after winning the summit finish to stage 10 to Lagos de Cavodonga (below) and never let it go again for the rest of the race. 

Quintana put the race to bed on stage 15, when he finished just behind Gianluca Brambilla, who landed another great win for us at 13/1 - he put 2'37" in to Chris Froome that day and the race was as good as over. Froome did rally in the last week to pull back the lead to just 1'21", but that was as close as he got, and Nairo Quintana put a disappointing Tour de France behind him to take the victory.

Esteban Chaves rallied in the final week too to take 3rd spot off of Alberto Contador, with only 13" separating Contador from a podium place. Chaves and Contador are back again, Chaves had a disastrous Tour as he continued to recover from injury, whereas Contador lit up the Tour with some attacking riding at least, and will be looking to go out with a bang in his final Vuelta, and in fact, his final ever race.

The Route

Stage 1 opens the race once again with a completely flat Team Time Trial, but it's half the distance of last year's opening TTT won by Team Sky by hundreths of a second from Movistar.. Will they be able to repeat that with Chris Froome driving them on again? 

Stage 2 is a 201km run through the flatlands of France to Gruissan, should be the first sprint of the race. Stage 3 takes them in to Andorra and looks like a day for the break with two Cat 1s and a Cat 2 sure to tempt out some of those looking to win the KOM competition. Stage 4 takes them in to Spain finally, but it's a boring looking stage with a sprint finish.

Stage 5 is finally where it starts to get interesting from a GC point of view, it's a lumpy stage with two Cat 3s and two Cat 2s, but finishes with the uphill pull to Alcossebre which averages a nasty 9.7% for 3.4kms. 

Stage 6 has five little categorised climbs along the way but could well end in a reduced bunch sprint, and Stage 7, despite it being a lumpy, bumpy affair of over 200kms, should probably end in a bunch sprint too, but the Cat 3 climb just 9kms from the finish might well shake things up. Stage 8 to Xorret de Cati is one stage that could almost be called a summit finish, with the nasty Cat 1 climb at the finish, but as it tops out with 2kms to go, it doesn't quite get the billing of 'summit finish'. It is sure to cause some more movement in the GC though.  

Stage 9 is flat more or less for 170kms, bar the Cat 2 climb which comes with 130kms gone, but then they hit the final pull up to Cumbre Del Sol, a really horrible finish which average 8.9% for 4.1kms. Stage 10 brings them back after the rest day and it's a strange stage that is descending for the first 100kms, and then suddenly the Cat 1 Collado Bermejo rises up out of the ground and they cross the top of it with just over 32kms to go, of which the last 10kms are on the flat. 

Stage 11 starts climbing after about 80kms and doesnt' really stop climbing for the next 100kms, taking in the Cat 1 Alto de Velefique and finishing with the summit finish at the astronomical observatory at Calar Alto. Stage 12 is a funny stage that could be won by a strong break, and has a Cat 1 and Cat 2 climb in it to disrupt the sprinters, but they might come far enough out on the course to still see most of the sprinters come back in to contention  

Stage 13 is flattish and boring and should be a bunch sprint, Stage 14 and Stage 15 could be two of the most important stage of the race, coming deep in to the second week. Stage 14 is uphill practically all day and finishes on the first Especialle Climb (ES) of this year's Veulta at Sierra De La Pandera. And if that wasn't enough, stage 15 finishes with the 27km ES climb to Sierra Nevada, which averages 5.8%, but has some really steep parts along the way. If you're on a bad day on either of these two days you could lose a lot of time..

Stage 16 is a long 40km individual time trial to Logrono, and it may be where Chris Froome tries to regain some possible lost time in the climbs of the previous days. Stage 17 is a really horrible stage, which finishes with the climb to Los Machucos, which has some incredibly steep and rough parts, as they climb over rutted concrete (right)

Stage 18 looks like a possible break day again, coming on the back of the brutal climb to Los Machucos and even though it says it's a summit finish, it only climbs to 500m and is a Cat 3 climb, so it's not that hard. 

Stage 19 is a shortish stage at 153kms and looks like one that will probably end in a sprint, but at this late point in the race, and with the final TT the next day, you'd give the break a good chance too. 

Stage 20 could possibly be the stage to decide it, a short and brutal stage to the summit of the Angliru. The Angliru is now legendary in Vuelta history, even though it's only been used twice. It averages 9.3% for 13kms, but there is a nasty part of around 2kms in the middle, where the average kicks up closer to 20%

And Stage 21 is the usual procession stage in to Madrid - it's short at just 102kms, they should be sprinting in Madrid some 2 1/2 hours later. 

The Favourites

Chris Froome comes here on the back of his fourth Tour de France victory, looking to become the first man since Bernard Hinault in 1978 to win the Tour-Vuelta double. When Hinault achieved that feat he won the Vuelta at his first attempt and took seven stages along the way, and then followed that by winning the Tour de France at his first attempt too. The order is important, as that was when the Vuelta was run in April/May, but no-one has achieved the double since it moved to its slot in August/September. But it's not from the lack of trying for Chris Froome, he has been runner-up no fewer than three times in the Vuelta. 

He had a mixed Tour de France, where he looked under real pressure for the first time in a few years, and looked vulnerable to a big move that never actually came. He hung in there after taking a lot of time off his key rivals in the first TT and polished it off with another good TT ride on the penultimate stage. But in between, Uran and Bardet both faired better than him in the mountains, but just couldn't find the killer punch to get rid of him. He survived mechanicals and punctures and he and Sky just ride a steady, choking race that killed off the opposition by suffocation. 

Vincenzo Nibali skipped the Tour this year to concentrate on the Giro, and he rode very well, but was just not strong enough to beat Tom Dumoulin. After finishing in the main GC group on Etna on stage 4, he was never lower than 5th, and managed to move up to 3rd on stage 16 and 2nd on stage 19.. but then Dumoulin leapfrogged from 4th to 1st in the final TT and pushed Nibali down to 3rd overall behind Quintana. Winner in 2010, 2nd in 2013, 7th in 2011, booted out in 2015 for taking a tow from his car on stage 2. He comes here fresh after skipping the Tour and is currently warming up for the Vuelta in the Tour de Pologne. Not sure how he will go on some of the very steep climbs here and the TT won't exactly help his cause, but he will be up there in the top 6. 

Alberto Contador comes for one last hurrah at the Vuelta, on the back of a decent showing at the Tour where he finished in 9th place, pulling off some exciting attacks and finishing well with 6th place in the final TT. Ilnur Zakarin finished 5th in the Giro, finishing 2nd on three separate stages, but his other stage races this year don't suggest he's going to be breaking on to the podium here.

Miguel Angel Lopez will be an exciting one to watch, but owing to injury he's only raced 19 days so far this year, but he did win the Tour of Austria, taking a fine stage win along the way, and 2nd place in the prologue, and just recently he returned to action in the Vuelta a Burgos where he won the final stage and finished 4th overall. 

Johan Esteban Chaves had a torrid time in the Tour, coming back from injury also, but the longer-term plan was always the Vuelta, where he has gone very well in the past, finishing 5th in 2015 and 3rd last year. Adam Yates, Rafal Majka, Wilko Kelderman, Marc Soler, Steven Kruijswijk - they all should be prominent and possibly capable of top tens, and may take stages along the way too.  

So Chris Froome is the 4/5 favourite to make history and become the first Tour/Vuelta double winner - can he do it? A full preview of all the favourites, jerseys and special markets will be available in the days before the Vuelta starts and will be available to subscribers only.  Click here to subscribe now!