The Vuelta a Espana don’t offer many opportunities for the pure sprinters and they need to make the most of it whenever they get the chance to shine. Their first chance comes in the opening road stage but a run along the coast in the finale will make things nervous and has the potential to produce a dramatic race.

 

The course

In the last few years, the Vuelta organizers have significantly reduced the number of sprint finishes and nowadays the fast finishers don’t have many opportunities in the last grand tour of the season. This has prompted many of the sprinters to skip the Spanish grand tour which opens the door for those who are brave enough to spend three weeks on the Iberian Peninsula.

 

The Vuelta is now loaded with summit finishes and the stages with flat finales are often pretty hilly with a climb located near the finish. However, the Vuelta always has at least a few completely flat stages and one of them comes right already in the opening road stage, offering the sprinters their first opportunity a lot earlier than in 2013 when stage 5 gave them their first chance to shine.

 

The stage brings the riders over 174.4km and starts in Algeciras near Gibraltar. Most of the stage follows a scenic route along the Mediterranean coast but there is a main digression already from the very start as the riders head inlands to go up the category 3 Alto del Cabrito (9.2km, 3.2%) which is the only climb of the day and will determine the first holder of the mountains jersey. The summit comes after 10.2km of racing and they are virtually all uphill.

 

Having descended back to the coast, the riders stay near the coastline for the remainder of the stage and even though they mainly avoid the coastal road, the terrain is almost completely flat as there are just two smaller climbs in the first half of the race. The riders contest the first intermediate sprint with 80km to go and then they pass close by the finishing circuit of San Fernando a few kilometres later.

 

Instead of heading straight to the finish, the riders make a small loop in the area north of San Fernando. The second intermediate sprint comes 41.9km from the finish and a little later, the riders turn around to head back towards the finish. Here they mainly follow the coastal road and inside the final 10km they travel along a very small isthmus that connects Cadiz with San Fernando.

 

The finale is very technical as there are four 90-degree turns inside the final 1200m. They all come in quick succession, with the final right-hand corner coming just a 400m from the line. The road is mostly flat but there is a slight rise just after the flamme rouge. On the finishing straight, the first 200m are downhill and the final 200m are flat

 

San Fernando has not hosted a stage of the Vuelta in recent years but in 2012 and 2013 it was the scene of the opening prologue of the Vuelta a Andalucia. Patrick Gretsch took the win 2 years ago while Alejandro Valverde laid his foundations for his overall victory by winning last year’s opener.

 

 

 

 

The weather

Going into the Vuelta a Espana, there is always a lot of talk about the heat that can make the race a lot harder than it looks on paper. This year the start in Andalucia has done nothing to dampen that speculation and as expected, the riders will get the race off to a very hot start.

 

Sunday is set to be another beautiful day along the Spanish coast and the temperature is expected to reach a very hot maximum of 32 degrees. However, the main concern on the opening day is the wind that can potentially split the peloton to pieces in the finale. There will be a moderate wind from a southeasterly direction which will abate a bit as the day goes on. This means that the riders will first a crosswind before turning into a tailwind that will help them ride pretty fast most of the day. With 28km to go, they turn around and from there it will mainly be a headwind. However, there will be a crosswind section as they head towards Cadiz before they again turn into a headwind. Inside the final 10km, there will again be a bit of a crosswind. That will be the case for the main part of the final 3km, including the 400m finishing straight.

 

The favourites

As it has become tradition in the Vuelta, the sprinters don’t have an awful lot of opportunities in this year’s race and most of the bunch sprints should come in the first week. Hence, they will all be raring to go and they have set their sights on the opening road stage which is one of their best chances of the entire race.

 

In today’s team time trial, they all tried to go full gas to limit their losses as the red jersey could be up for grabs in the first few stages. In fact, the first four road stages are likely to end in a sprint and even though some of them will require a solid pair of climbing legs, the strongest sprinters will have a shot at the jersey before they hit the mountains on Thursday. In each stage, there are 10, 6 and 4 seconds up for grabs for the first three riders across the line and this will provide them with extra incentive to work for a sprint.

 

In the first week of a grand tour, it is very hard to deny the sprinters in the flat stages and even though the biggest names are not in attendance, there are lots of fast guys that have set their sights on this stage. Hence, we can expect stage 2 to be firmly controlled by the sprint teams and it should all come down to a bunch sprint.

 

With a KOM sprint just 10km from the start, we can expect a furious pace right from the beginning. Lots of riders will be keen to secure themselves the coveted jersey on the opening day and with the sprint coming early, they don’t have to spend the entire day in the breakaway to get it. The break is unlikely to have gone clear at the top as the racing will probably be very aggressive but as soon as they have crested the summit, there is very little incentive to go on the attack.

 

We can expect the early break to get clear shortly after the top and it will probably be a small group with riders from the likes of Caja Rural, MTN-Qhubeka and Europcar. With a tailwind, it will be a pretty fast stage and so the sprint teams won’t take too many risks. Hence, we can expect to see FDJ and Giant-Shimano hit the front very early and keep the gap down. They may get some assistance from Orica-GreenEDGE but we expect those two teams to carry the main working load.

 

As the riders stay near the coast and the GC hasn’t settled yet, it should be the typical nervous first road stage of a grand tour. All the GC riders and sprinters want to stay near the front but with a tailwind, the racing should not be too stressful and hopefully we won’t see the usual crashes.

 

With 30km to go, however, the riders get closer to the coast and this should make things a lot more nervous. The crosswind section inside the final 20km will be feared by everybody and we can expect a huge battle for position after the riders have turned around 28km from the finish. This is where the real drama will unfold and where crashes can split the peloton. The increased pace will automatically spell an end for the breakaway.

 

The wind is set to abate in the finale and as everybody will be well-prepared, it is very unlikely that things will split up. The only real danger should come from the crashes but history has proved that they are even more dangerous than the wind itself.

 

In any case, it should all come down to a sprint finish. The very technical finale means that positioning and team support are crucial and the short finishing straight also makes acceleration extremely important. It will be very important to enter the first of the final four corners in one of the first positions as it will be very hard to move up after that point. This stage is definitely not one for the real power sprinters.

 

This means that it is hard to look beyond Nacer Bouhanni as the favourite. On paper, the Frenchman and John Degenkolb are the fastest riders in the race but while the German excels in the real power sprints, the Frenchman is at his best in the tricky, technical finales. This sprint is tailor-made for him and offers him a formidable chance to continue his success from the Giro.

 

Bouhanni doesn’t have the strongest team at his side but that has never been necessary for him. He just relies of Murilo Fischer and Geoffrey Soupe to bring him into position and his formidable positioning skills mean that he usually gets the perfect wheel in the finale. He is technically very strong and he has a formidable acceleration that is very hard to match on such a short finishing straight.

 

Bouhanni showed good condition in the Eneco Tour where he won stage 4 in commanding fashion and it seems that he is already back to his best after a mid-season break. Most of the sprints in this year’s race are not too technical and this is probably the one that suits him the best. The Frenchman will be very eager to take his first Vuelta win and is our favourite in the opening road stage.

 

His biggest rival is likely to be John Degenkolb. As said, this sprint doesn’t suit a power sprinter like him very well but he has one very important ace up his sleeve: a very strong lead-out train. With the likes of Nikias Arndt, Ramon Sinkeldam and final lead-out man Koen De Kort at his side, the German clearly has the best team support.

 

That is very important in this kind of technical finish. If Giant-Shimano can hit the front inside the final 2km, Degenkolb may be the first sprinter to go through the final turns. If De Kort drops him off in the perfect position on the short finishing straight, it takes a very fast rider to beat him. Earlier this year Degenkolb seemed to be even faster than Cavendish and he sprinted excellently in the Tour de France as well.

 

His main challenge will be to keep up with his teammates in the finale as he very often gets lost. Before the final four turns, however, the finale is not too technical and this should make it easier for him to stay in De Kort’s wheel. If he manages to do so and Giant live up their reputation, he will be hard to beat.

 

The only team that can potentially rival Giant-Shimano when it comes to lead-out, is Orica-GreenEDGE. Brett Lancaster and Mitch Docker have a lot of experience in leading Michael Matthews out and this makes the Australian a danger man. This flat sprint doesn’t suit Matthews perfectly as he usually needs a harder race to really excel but he has improved a lot in the flat sprints too. He sprinted really well in the Tour de Pologne where his team was surprised by his good condition.

 

Nonetheless, he will probably have to rely on his team to win this stage as there are faster riders than him. However, Lancaster and Docker have the firepower to make the difference in this kind of stage where positioning is crucial. If Orica-GreenEDGE lead Matthews through the final turns as the first sprinter, he definitely has a chance.

 

On paper, this technical sprint suits Peter Sagan down to the ground. The Slovakian is technically better than all his rivals and he handles the positioning aspect better than anyone else. He has a very strong kick and benefits from the short finishing straight.

 

However, we are a bit uncertain about Sagan’s priorities in this race. He hasn’t said much about his objectives but his main goal is probably to build conditions for the Worlds. Of course he will target a stage win along the way but his team has indicated that they may be riding for an in-form Guillaume Boivin in the pure bunch sprints. This means that Sagan may take it easy in tomorrow’s stage. If he decides to go full gas, however, this sprint suits him perfectly.

 

Lampre-Merida got their race off to a disastrous start as they lost Chris Horner less than 48 hours before they rolled down the start ramp for the team time trial. With Horner out of the race, there will be more room for the team’s two sprinters Roberto Ferrari and Maximilano Richeze. The team has said nothing about the internal hierarchy but we will expect them to be riding for the Italian.

 

Ferrari usually doesn’t have a lot of support in the sprint finishes but in this race he has both Filippo Pozzato and Richeze at his side. He is excellent at positioning himself, is technically very good and has a very fast acceleration. This sprint suits him well and this makes him an obvious outsider.

 

Andrea Guardini has always been one of the fastest sprinters in the world but he has often lost out due to poor positioning. In the last few weeks, however, he seems to have improved that aspect and he rode excellently to win two stages in the Tour of Denmark and one in the Eneco Tour. With Jacopo Guarnieri and ALexy Lutsenko at his side, he can expect to have solid support and this makes him an obvious winner candidate. This sprint doesn’t suit him perfectly as positioning is more important than speed but if he is not too far back in the final turn, he has the power to finish it off.

 

Finally, we will select our jokers. For Jens Debusschere, this Vuelta is his first big test at the highest sprinting level. However, he has been riding really well in recent months, winning the bunch sprint at the Belgian championships and a stage in the Tour de Wallonie. With Greg Henderson at his side, he has one of the best lead-out men in the world and that is very important in this technical finale. He showed great speed in the Eneco Tour and if Henderson manages to position him well, he could create a surprise.

 

Moreno Hofland is riding his first grand tour and he will be eager to make his mark in the sprints. He is no pure sprinter and there are definitely faster riders than him. However, he was sprinting well in the Tour of Utah which was his comeback race after a bad injury. With Robert Wagner at his side, he has an experienced lead-out man. He is very unlikely to win the stage but he could finish in the top 5.

 

CyclingQuotes’ stage winner pick: Nacer Bouhanni

Other winner candidates: John Degenkolb, Michael Matthews

Outsiders: Peter Sagan, Roberto Ferrari, Andrea Guardini

Jokers: Jens Debusschere, Moreno Hofland