The Vuelta a Espana has a reputation as a revenge race for riders that have had little success in the first part of the season. This year some of the world’s biggest stars have been plagued by bad luck and while most of the cycling world lamented Chris Froome’s and Alberto Contador’s crashes in the Tour de France and Joaquim Rodriguez’  crash in the Giro d’Italia, Vuelta director Javier Guillen may have had a hard time hiding his satisfaction. This year the Vuelta can probably field the strongest line-up of all the grand tours and even though the main contenders may not all have had the perfect preparation, all is set for a big showdown that includes most of the grand tour winners among the current professionals. CyclingQuotes.com takes a thorough look at this year's favourites and outsiders and finds out all about their strengths and weaknesses.

 

Most of the cycling world was left disappointed when Joaquim Rodriguez crashed out of the Giro, leaving the rest of the Italian grand tour to be an almost ceremonial ride for Nairo Quintana. The disappointment was even bigger when Chris Froome and Alberto Contador both abandoned the Tour de France, thus cancelling what had been described as the greatest duel for years.

 

Luckily the cycling calendar offers a great chance for revenge. The Vuelta a Espana is the perfect opportunity to salvage a disappointing season and this year several riders have lots at stake. With Chris Froome, Alberto Contador, Nairo Quintana, Ryder Hesjedal, Chris Horner and Cadel Evans all on the start line, most of the grand tour champions will line up at the race and if one adds the likes of Joaquim Rodriguez, Alejandro Valverde, Daniel Martin, Fabio Aru, Andrew Talansky, Samuel Sanchez, Wilco Kelderman, Przemyslaw Niemiec, Rigoberto Uran and Robert Gesink, it is evident that the Vuelta can field one of the strongest line-ups in recent years.

 

Contador may not be in a condition that allows him to fight for the overall win but Froome, Quintana and Rodriguez have all made it clear that they line up in Spain with the clear goal of winning the race overall. Horner claims to be stronger than he was when he took a surprise win 12 months ago and Valverde has a formidable track record in the Vuelta where he hasn’t finished outside the top 5 since 2003. Talansky is ready to take revenge from a disappointing Tour and his teammate Martin is keen to make up for a poor Giro. Kelderman, Uran, Aru, Evans and Hesjedal have all recovered from their Giro exploits while Gesink will be keen to show that he is back to his best after his heart surgery.

 

CyclingQuotes.com has taken an in-depth look at the race's favourites, assigning 5 stars to the race's biggest favourite, 4 to his two biggest rivals, 3 to three other potential winners, 2 to four of the podium contenders and 1 to 5 of the race's minor outsiders. In this article, we take a look at the 2-star riders that should all be solid podium candidates.

 

Daniel Martin (**)

Daniel Martin enters this year's Giro d'Italia as the great dark horse. Over the last year, the Garmin rider has stepped up his level massively and his performance in the last two editions of Liege-Bastogne-Liege and last year's Il Lombardia prove that he is now one the world's leading contenders for the hilly classics.

 

As a grand tour contender, however, he is almost a completely blank page. He has already done seven  three-week races but so far he has rarely had a focus on the overall standings. Instead, he has always underlined his approach of treating the races as 21 consecutive one-day classics and with stage wins in both the Vuelta and the Tour, he has proved that this way of handling the races has suited him well.

 

He has been in GC contention in a grand tour twice: in the 2011 Vuelta where he finished 13th overall despite his day-to-day approach, and at last year's Tour de France where illness in the final week probably denied him a spot in the top 10. He had more bad luck at last year's Vuelta when he crashed out of the race after getting the tour off to a solid start.

 

Earlier this year, Martin started his first grand tour with a clear focus on the GC when he lined up on home soil for the Grande Partenza of the Giro. Unfortunately, his race again came to abrupt end as he crashed in the opening team time trial and we were again robbed the opportunity to see how he would perform in a three-week race.

 

The Irish start had made the Giro his big goal for the season but he now had to refocus. He quickly realized that the Tour de France came too early and instead he made the second half of the season his big goal. With his great one-day abilities, he has made the world championships and Il Lombardia obvious targets but first of all he will line up at the Vuelta.

 

Martin hasn’t been very clear regarding his goals in the race which can both serve as preparation for the one-day races or be a key goal in its own right. He is part of a very strong Garmin team that has no less than three potential GC riders as he lines up alongside Andrew Talansky and Ryder Hesjedal. The former initially made it clear that he would ride in support of his two teammates but as time has gone by it now seems that the team will line up with three captains.

 

Martin hasn’t raced an awful lot since his Giro crash. He lined up at his national championships and used the Tour of Austria to get back into the racing rhythm. His first major test was last week’s Tour de l’Ain where he did well by finishing third overall. In fact, it seemed that only Romain Bardet was stronger than the Irishman on the climbs.

 

Before his crash, Martin also showed that he is one of the best climbers in the world. He took second in Fleche Wallonne and he would maybe have made it two in a row in Liege if he hadn't gone down in the final turn. Despite the initial disappointment, those two performances will have boosted his confidence significantly and as he still claimed to have room for improvement, there may be more to come from the Irishman.

 

However, his lack of grand tour experience makes him more of a dark horse than a race favourite. He openly admits that he still hasn't proved that he can perform regularly with the very best over three weeks of racing and this makes his performance very uncertain.

 

At the same time, he has mostly shined in one-day races and on shorter climbs where he can make use of his explosive climbing skills while he has had a harder time in the high mountains. This year's Vuelta will obviously be decided in the final two weeks which are loaded with longer climbs and it is another question how Martin will handle those strains. Furthermore, he is a very poor time trialist and he will find himself with a lot of time to make up after stage 10.

 

Nonetheless, Martin's splendid performances over the last two years make him one of the riders that can realistically target the overall victory. There's a big risk that he can't live up to expectations and will finish far down the rankings but this assessment is about winning potential, not top 10 chances. Martin enters the race as an almost blank piece of paper and an exciting dark horse and it is now time for him to find out whether he has the potential to be a grand tour rider or if he should stay focused on a career as one of the world's leading one-day riders.

 

Andrew Talansky (**)

It was a heartbreaking experience to watch Andrew Talansky’s dramatic exit from the Tour de France. Having underlined his great potential by winning the Dauphiné overall, the American had gone into the race with lofty ambitions of a podium spot and for the first time, his Garmin-Shapr team had lined up in La Grande Boucle with a single purpose. Team manager Jonathan Vaughters believed fully in his young captain and so built the entire roster around the young American.

 

Talansky was looking good in the first part of the race but things started to unravel in stage 7. Looking back in the final sprint, the American was hit by another rider and hit the deck hard. One day later he was involved in another crash which spelled the end for his GC campaign. With tears in his eyes, he fought his way to the finish as the last rider in stage 11 and one day later he left the race.

 

Talansky quickly made it clear that he would now target the Vuelta where he stated his intention to ride in support of Daniel Martin and Ryder Hesjedal. Since then, he has stayed quiet, not making any public statements about his intentions in the Spanish grand tour and it now seems that Garmin-Sharp will line up at the race with three GC riders.

 

Talansky hasn’t raced since the Tour and so nobody really knows where he stands. Obviously, he has spent some time recovering from his back injury and so he is unlikely to be in the same splendid condition that allowed him to enter the Tour as one of the genuine podium contenders. On the other hand, that great form won’t have disappeared completely as he has been able to train regularly and there is no reason to suggest that the Garmin rider is not at a decent level.

 

The uncertainty about his form makes Talansky a dark horse more than a real favourite. However, the American is one of the most gifted stage race riders in the world and he seems to have the potential to become one of the grand tour greats.

 

It speaks volumes about Andrew Talansky’s talent that he has earned himself this position in the Garmin-Sharp team in just his fourth year as a professional. In his final year as a U23 rider, he made the world aware of his talents by finishing 10th in the Baby Giro, 3rd in the Ronde de l’Isard and 2nd in the Tour de l’Avenir and showed that he could mix it up with the professionals by taking 6th in the Tour of the Gila that was won by Levi Leipheimer ahead of Tom Danielson. The results earned him a contract with Garmin-Sharp but in his first year his results were mixed. While he failed to be up there with the best in the climbs, he first marked himself out as a great time triallist with several top 10 results in WorldTour TTs.

 

He took the step from talent to serious contender in the biggest races when he finished second in the 2012 Tour de Romandie. What made his performance even more impressive was the fact that he had finished less than a second behind Bradley Wiggins in the final uphill time trial at a time when the Brit seemed almost unbeatable. Later that year he won his first major stage race, the mountainous Tour de l’Ain, before taking 7th in the Vuelta, the first grand tour he did as a team leader.

 

Last year he stepped up his game another level when he finished 2nd in Paris-Nice behind an almost unbeatable Richie Porte and went on to make his Tour de France debut later that year. His first outing of the world’s biggest race was not too impressive as he finished a pretty anonymous 10th and rode a pretty anonymous race.

 

When Talansky deserves the role as the youngster that could challenge the established grand tour stars, it is not related to his Tour de France debut. Our admiration for this youngster is based on the flashes of climbing prowess he has shown on two occasions that prove that he has the level to seriously contend for a top result in the grand tours.

 

Based on his performance in Paris-Nice, he went into last year’s Criterium du Dauphiné with big expectations on his shoulders. Suffering from illness, however, he fell out of GC contention and devoted himself fully to teammate Rohan Dennis who did surprisingly well in that race. In the final mountain stage, however, Talansky was allowed to play his own cards at a point when Dennis’ white jersey was no longer in danger. At that point, Chris Froome and Richie Porte had left everyone else behind them and the Brit was trying to drag his teammate up to lone escapee Alessandro De Marchi in a quest to give the Australian a teammate. However, Talansky flew past several established grand tour stars and reached the Sky duo just before the line, forcing Froome to forget abot Porte and sprint ahead of Talansky to take second behind De Marchi.

 

That performance was the first sign that Talansky is an extraordinary talent and this year he confirmed it in that same race. Having had a disappointing spring season where he failed to make too much of an impact in both Tirreno-Adriatico and the Volta a Catalunya and had had bad luck in the Tour de Romandie which was his big goal for the first part of the season, Talansky came into the Dauphiné with all guns blazing. In the opening time trial, he finished fourth and then climbed solidly in the first mountain stage to take fifth.

 

However, it was his performances in the final weekend that really marked him out. In the queen stage, Alberto Contador had dropped Chris Froome who was suffering from injuries sustained in a crash but the Brit made a final desperate acceleration in a quest to rejoin his main rival. Initially, he dropped everyone but slowly Talansky and teammate Hesjedal clawed their way back to the world’s best climber. One day later he and Hesjedal blew the race apart on one of the earlier climbs and after the Canadian had sacrificed himself for his young teammate, Talansky – with just a bit of help from Jurgen Van Den Broeck – almost single-handedly held off no less of a figure than Contador to take the overall victory in one of the most prestigious race after having been on the attack all day.

 

More than anything else, those two Dauphiné performances elevate Talansky from top 10 candidate to podium contender for the Tour. As his best grand tour performance is 7th in the 2012 Vuelta, there are a lot of question marks surrounding the young American and he still needs to prove that he can consistently perform at his highest level for three weeks. However, he is one of the select few that have shown that he is capable of challenge the best on the climbs. Until now, he has had a very steady and natural progression and in 2014 he seems to have taken the next step.

 

What makes Talansky exciting is his versatility. While his Dauphiné victory was based on his climbing skills, he first made himself known as a time triallist. Unfortunately, he seems to have lost a bit of his TT prowess as he has improved his climbing but his Dauphiné performance proves that he still has a decent time trial. Compared to most other GC riders, he should be able to gain time in stage 10 and not many riders will be able to drop him on the climbs.

 

With Hesjedal and Martin at his side, he is part of one of the strongest teams that has lots of tactical options. While the Canadian seems to no longer be at the level that allowed him to win the 2012 Giro, Talansky and Martin will form a very dangerous duo in the mountains. The relatively steep, irregular climbs don’t suit Talansky perfectly and he is definitely more suited to the Tour than to the Vuelta. With his time trial skills, however, he has a great card up his sleeve and if he has the climbing legs he had in the Dauphiné, he will be genuine podium contender.

 

Of course Talansky is unlikely to win the race overall and as he is unlikely to be at 100%, he may end as a big disappointment. Based on his previous performances, however, it won’t take long before the American will be riding for the win in the grand tours and in the past he has created lots of surprises. Another one could be in store in Spain this autumn.

 

Rigoberto Uran (**)

When illness forced Bradley Wiggins to leave last year's Giro d'Italia, Sky captaincy duties fell onto the shoulders of Rigoberto Uran. The Colombian was up to the challenge and delivered a consistent, albeit unspectacular performance, to finish 2nd. Being part of Sky tactics, he was allowed to slip up the road and gain time on the stage to Altopiano del Montasio when Wiggins was still the focal point, and that put him into the GC mix.

 

That performance earned him a contract with Omega Pharma-Quick Step that was desperately looking for a GC contender and team manager Patrick Lefevere decided that the talented Colombian was the rider that should elevate the team from a classics squad to one with contenders for all types of races. Having originally been set to do the Tour de France, the team changed its plans and made him target the Giro.

 

Having raced just one grand tour as a team leader, Uran went into the race with a bit of uncertainty, especially after he had climbed pretty poorly in the Tour de Romandie. However, the Colombian rode a splendid race to confirm his potential by taking his second consecutive runner-up spot.

 

The performance has convinced the team that Uran deserves his spot at the top of the internal grand tour hierarchy and the management is now trying to build a roster that can support the Colombian and Michal Kwiatkowski in future stage races. It is testament to the team’s confidence in Uran that the Vuelta roster has been fully dedicated to the Colombian and only Tom Boonen and Tony Martin seem to have some kind of freedom to use the race to prepare for the world championships.

 

Despite being just 27 years of age, Uran is already a grand tour veteran with 8 three-week races under his belt. He arrived in Europe at a very young age and first made the world aware of his talents when he won a stage of the Tour de Suisse at just 20 years of age and those many years at the WorldTour level has allowed him to already accumulate lot of experience in the three-week races.

 

Nonetheless, his stellar performance in last year's Giro was more of an exception than a culmination of a long list of strong results in the grand tours. In fact, Uran failed to produce the needed consistency over three weeks despite often getting the chance to go for the GC while riding for Movistar. His role obviously changed when he joined Sky but it was actually in the colours of the British team that he first showed signs of life in the grand tours. In the 2011 Tour de France, he took over captaincy duties when Bradley Wiggins crashed out of the race and definitely had a chance to finish in the top 10 until stomach issues saw him drop out of GC contention in the final week.

 

In 2012 he got his first chance to line up in a grand tour as the designated leader and for the first time he performed consistently over three weeks to finish 7th. That performance laid the foundations for his breakthrough ride one year later when he proved to be ready when circumstances suddenly gave him a chance.

 

Those results were backed up by his performance in this year’s Giro and it is now hard to argue against the assessment that Uran is a very solid grand tour rider. However, there are still obvious chinks in his armour that make it hard to imagine Uran as a future winner of a three-week race.

 

First of all, he seems to lack the consistency that is needed to come out on top after three weeks of hard racing. Both his Giro performances were marked by very inconsistent performances in the mountains. While he has great legs one day, he seems to suffer massively just 24 hours later. He is great at limiting his losses but those many bad days make him vulnerable.

 

Uran earned his status as a stage race rider by virtue of his great climbing skills and he usually suffered a time loss in the time trials. Since joining Omega Pharma-Quick Step, however, he has improved massively in the TTs and that gives him a clear advantage compared to the pure climbers. In fact his second place in the Giro was based on his dominant win in the long time trial while he lost time to the likes of Aru and Quintana in the mountains.

 

That TT performance was no fluke as he delivered equally impressive showing in the Tour de Romandie and most recently in the Tour de l’Ain prologue. Importantly, he has shown that he can even perform pretty well in flat time trials which will be of significance in the Vuelta whose TTs are both suited to the specialists.

 

Uran’s condition is a bit uncertain as his only race since the Giro was the Tour de l’Ain. He did a great prologue but suffered in the mountains to end the race in 22nd. That may not be too worrying though. Going into the Giro, he was far off the mark in Romandie but by the time, things got serious in the Giro he was fully ready. Uran has proved that he knows how to time his preparations and there is no reason to suggest that he won’t be fully ready for the Spanish grand tour.

 

Last year he suffered from fatigue in the Vuelta which indicates that two grand tours in one season may be a bit too much for him. One year older and with a different preparation, however, he may now be able to cope with the strains. With his newly found TT skills, he is likely to gain time of most of the GC riders in stage 10 and that will give him a buffer for the mountains. His climbing is definitely not at Froome’s or Quintana’s level and it is hard to imagine that he will emerge as a potential winner. If he can limit the number of bad days and do a great time trial, however, another solid grand tour performance may be in store and this would fully solidify his position as the future grand tour leader for Omega Pharma-Quick Step. 

 

Wilco Kelderman (**)

The Belkin team and the Rabobank Development Team have had a fantastic ability to develop great Dutch stage racing talents. In the last few years, Robert Gesink, Bauke Mollema and Steven Kruijswijk have all followed the same path to develop into grand tour contenders that have all finished in the top 10 in three-week races.

 

The latest addition to the list is Wilco Kelderman and the he is probably the biggest talent of them all. While it seems very unlikely that any of his three predecessors will ever be able to win a grand tour, the young Dutchman has shown the skills that makes it realistic for Belkin to believe that they have a real diamond on their roster.

 

While Gesink, Mollema and Kruijswijk are mainly known for their climbing skills, Kelderman is a much more versatile rider. In fact, his main assets are his time trialing skills and he took his first major professional result when he finished a surprising 4th in the long, flat time trial at the 2012 Dauphiné. He ended the race by climbing solidly enough to secure a win in the youth classification and finish in the top 10 overall.

 

While he excelled in the time trials, however, his climbing seemed to be too limited in the first part of his professional career but like so many other talents, he has benefited immensely from completing his first grand tour. Last year he lined up at the Giro to ride in support of Robert Gesink but still managed to finish the race in the top 20. While the result may have been mediocre, the effects of the three-week strain were massive. After his post-Giro break, he was flying in the second part of the season and kicked it all off by winning the overall and the time trial at the Tour of Denmark before taking a very solid 7th in the Eneco Tour.

 

However, nothing really suggested that he would go on to reach the heights that he has done in 2014. He showed the first signs of his improved climbing skills in Paris-Nice where only bad luck prevented him from being in winning contention. He was hit by more bad luck in the Volta a Catalunya but it was his performances in the one-day races Volta a Limburg and Rund um den Finanzplatz that indicated that a big performance could be in store in the Giro.

 

Lining up as the team leader for the first time, Kelderman did a great performance. In the first part of the race, he seemed to be one of the very best climbers of the race and was in contention for a spot on the podium. He faded a bit in the tough final week which saw him drop to seventh but the performance gave signs that he has the potential to be a contender in future grand tours.

 

However, his real breakthrough came one week later in the Dauphiné. While most of his fellow Giro contenders were recovering from their efforts, Kelderman lined up at the French race which is probably the hardest one-week race in the world. Being up against all the major Tour de France contenders in peak condition, he finished the race in fourth overall and may have finished on the podium if he had not missed the big break in the final stage.

 

That performance underlined that Kelderman has the recovery skills to excel in the hardest races. He may have faded a bit in the final week of the Giro but he avoided any bad days and seemed to be riding at a pretty consistent level. Furthermore, he performed very well in a race that was loaded with steep climbs which was a tough ask for a rider that is much more than a pure climber.

 

Kelderman has clearly improved his climbing skills massively and with his great TT skills, he has the versatility that is needed in the grand tours. Unfortunately, it seems that he has lost a bit in the TTs, probably due to his increased focus on climbing. However, he is a naturally gifted time triallist and is definitely among the best GC riders in the individual discipline.

 

Like Aru and Quintana, Kelderman finds himself in untested territory when he lines up for his second grand tour in a single season and it is still unknown whether he will be able to handle such a massive racing burden. The way he recovered after the Giro, however, suggests that his body will be able to cope with another hard block of racing and if he has benefited even more from the completion of another grand tour, he will be a danger man.

 

Kelderman has prepared for the Vuelta at altitude in Utah where he did the Tour of Utah to get back up to racing speed. Having suffered a bit in the first part of the race, he found his legs for the final weekend and only narrowly missed out on a stage win in the final two mountain stages. He ended the tough race in 5th overall which speaks volumes about his improved climbing skills as the race had no time trial.

 

On paper, the Vuelta may not be perfectly suited to Kelderman who would definitely have preferred a bit more time trialling. This year’s more balanced course should suit him well and with two flat time trials, he will be able to benefit more from his TT skills than he would have done on more mixed courses.

 

The climbs in Spain are usually a bit shorter than their Italian counterparts and this may play into the hands of Kelderman. In fact, the Dutchman seemed to suffer a bit on the long climbs in Italy and as he is pretty explosive, he may find the Spanish mountains more suited to his characteristics.

 

Kelderman lines up at the race as part of a three-pronged Belkin attack that also includes Robert Gesink and Laurens Ten Dam and on paper the Dutch team should be one of the strongest. While Gesink is still trying to find his racing legs after his heart surgery and Ten Dam is likely to be fatigued after a hard Tour, Kelderman seems to be their strongest weapon.

 

Of course this year’s Vuelta comes a bit too early for Kelderman to realistically target the overall victory and a spot on the podium will also be hard to achieve in this high-level field. However, Kelderman has had a very steady progression so far and if he has taken another step up since the Dauphiné, no one really knows how far the next Dutch grand tour star can come in the Spanish grand tour.