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 3-star favourites that may be seen as outside bets for the overall win.

 

Fabio Aru (***)

For several years, Italy has been desperately looking for their next big grand tour star and lots of riders have briefly given the cycling-mad country a glimmer of hope before fading back into anonymity. Now, however, the stage racing scene is flourishing and with Vincenzo Nibali’s Tour de France victory, the country hasn’t had more success in the three-week races for more than a decade.

 

Nibali’s successor is already knocking on the door for his first grand tour win. For a long time, it has been clear that Fabio Aru is an extraordinary climbing talent and in his first professional season he gave lots of signs that he is a stage racing star in the making. However, few would have expected him to storm onto the grand tour scene in the way he did when he finished third in the Giro earlier this year.

 

Having ridden in support of Nibali in last year’s race, the Italian grand tour was Aru’s first chance as a team leader in a three-week race and he lined up with the plan to gain experience under the tutelage of co-captain Michele Scarponi. While a crash took the latter out of contention, Aru delivered a flawless performance to finish the race in third overall and even won the big mountain stage to Montecampione in the process.

 

After finishing 2nd in the 2012 Baby Giro and having won the mountainous Giro della Valle d'Aoste twice in a row, Astana signed the promising Italian climber and he started his professional career midway through the 2012 season. In his very first race at the highest level, he made the world aware of his talents when he finished a fantastic second in the queen stage of that year's USA Pro Cycling Challenge.

 

Astana assigned their young climber a massive task very early when they lined him up at last year's Giro d'Italia despite having one of the race favourites, Vincenzo Nibali, in their ranks. However, Aru had proved himself ready for the challenge by taking fourth in the Giro del Trentino which was won by Nibali and the team even expressed hopes that he could fight for the white jersey.

 

After a solid start the race, Aru fell sick in the second week of the Giro and fell completely out of GC contention but he bounced back with an excellent ride in the queen stage to Tre Cime Di Lavaredo on the penultimate day when he finished fifth. Even though the GC dreams were never realized, that final performance was a very encouraging sign as it proved his ability to perform at the end of a grand tour.

 

Even though he failed to live up to those performances in the second half of the year, Astana put full confidence in their climber for the Giro and that gamble paid off. Despite riding a bit inconsistently, Aru proved that his climbing skills were probably only matched by Quintana and on his great days, he seemed to be almost on par with the Colombian.

 

The most striking example was of course the Monte Grappa mountain time trial. In a stage suited to the pure climbers, Quintana was expected to crush the opposition. However, the Colombian had to go the limits to hold off an impressive Aru who was beaten by only 17 seconds which he mostly lost in the flat first part of the stage.

 

Like Quintana, the 24-year-old Aru has lots of room for improvement and the Grappa performance underlined that he has the potential to become one of the greatest climbers of his generation. That kind of promise and his young age naturally makes him one of the potential winners of the Vuelta and if he has taken a further step up, he should be very close to the best.

 

However, his age also makes him one of the big question marks for the race. A few months ago, Aru had never been riding a grand tour for GC and now he faces his third three-week race in one season. Astana is clearly making a gamble by giving their youngster such a massive task, especially after his struggles in the second half of the 2013 season.

 

Until now, Aru has given no indication that he is back at his Giro level. When he lined up in Italy, he had just finished in the top 10 of the Giro del Trentino and was evidently in a good condition. Since the Italian grand tour, he has only been riding the Tour de Pologne where he was working as a domestique and clearly far from his best. Obviously, there is a big chance that he won’t be at 100% and that he will have another difficult autumn season.

 

Secondly, Aru was slightly inconsistent in the Giro. If he is not in his best condition, there is a bigger risk that he will have a few bad days and in such a high-level field, poor performances will be very costly. He will be under less pressure as he will share the leadership duties with the usually highly consistent Tanel Kangert but due to his great Giro, Aru cannot escape the spotlight and his poor performance in Poland has already been scrutinized by the Italian media.

 

On paper, the Vuelta suits Aru perfectly. As a pure climber, he will excel in the many summit finishes. He is not a very explosive rider and so will be pleased to learn that this year’s finishing climbs are all pretty long. In the Giro, he proved his aggressive mindset and gained a lot of time by launching brave moves when the main favourites were looking at each other. Undoubtedly, he will try similar moves in the Vuelta and even though he will now be a marked man, the likes of Quintana, Rodriguez and Froome will be more concerned with each other.

 

Aru’s main weakness is his poor TT skills and compared to a specialist like Froome, he can expect to suffer a massive time loss in stage 10. Despite his great climbing abilities, it will be very hard to take back all the time in mountains. Coupled with the uncertainty about his form, this makes a win highly unlikely. On the other hand, he is one of the select few that has shown the climbing potential that makes a big surprise a genuine opportunity.

 

There is a big risk that two grand tours will be a bit too much for Aru and that a bad day will see him need to refocus on stage wins. However, the Italian is clearly one of the most talented climbers of his generation and it seems that it is only a question of time before he takes his first grand tour victory. The 2014 Vuelta may come a bit too early for him but as he proved in the Giro, it is hard to overestimate his potential.

 

Alejandro Valverde (***)

In the Tour de France, it was now or never for Alejandro Valverde. Being one of the most decorated cyclists of his generation, the Spaniard still hadn’t achieved his dream of standing on the podium in Paris and his entire season had been geared towards one final bid at that elusive top 3 result. When Chris Froome and Alberto Contador crashed out of the race and Valverde avoided his usual bad luck in the final week, it seemed that the stars finally aligned for the Spaniard who seemed to be poised to finish in the top 3.

 

Having been pretty consistent in the first two weeks, however, Valverde cracked in the final week. Having suffered in the final mountain stages, he received the final blow in the final time trial where he delivered an unusually poor performance. Valverde may have ended the race in a career-best fourth but he had missed out on his elusive objective.

 

With Nairo Quintana set to return as Movistar leader in 2015, Valverde knew that the 2014 race was probably his final chance. However, the final week clearly underlined his limitations as a grand tour rider. Clearly one of the most talented riders of his generation, the Spaniard could probably have dominated the classics for a decade if he had focused solely on the one-day races. However, he has always insisted on going for grand tour glory but he never turned into the stage racing star that many thought he would be.

 

At his top level, Valverde is one of the very best climbers in the world and his fast sprint makes him a prolific winner and one of the most successful riders of his generation. The Movistar leader, however, is unable to maintain his top level throughout a grand tour. In the first part of his career, he usually lost it all on a couple of bad days. With age, he has learnt how to limit his losses and he never cracks completely. At the end of a grand tour, however, there are always fresher riders than him.

 

While he may have difficulty maintaining his level throughout a three-week race, he is one of the most consistent riders when it comes to keeping a high level throughout an entire season. Valverde usually wins his first race right from the beginning of the season and his fantastic track record in the Vuelta proves that he has a formidable ability to be at his best at the end too. Since he stormed onto the scene with a third place in the 2003 edition of the race, he has finished in the top 5 in every edition he has done. In his three most recent outings, he has even finished on all three steps of the podium.

 

That kind of consistency doesn’t come by coincidence and proves Valverde’s great talent. Even when not at 100%, Valverde is a very classy bike rider and this makes him perfectly suited to the Vuelta. At a time when most of his rivals are suffering from fatigue, Valverde’s pure class makes a big difference and has allowed him to shine on home soil consistently for more than a decade.

 

Despite his fatigue at the end of the Tour, Valverde will again line up at the Vuelta and history shows that he is very likely to be in podium contention. While it is a bit uncertain whether riders like Nairo Quintana and Fabio Aru can handle the strains of another grand tour, everybody knows that Valverde will be ready. Less than a week after the final stage of the Tour, he was back at his top level when he won the Clasica San Sebastian and there is no reason to believe that he won’t be at a similar level in his home grand tour.

 

This year, however, Valverde won’t be the undisputed leader of the team. For the first time ever, he goes into the race with a dual leadership and even though he and Quintana are officially co-leaders, Movistar have clearly indicated that the Colombian is their plan A. Clearly, Valverde will be allowed to do his own race but if Quintana takes the leader’s jersey, Valverde may have to step into a domestique role.

 

With the time trial coming pretty early, however, Chris Froome is likely to take the lead before the main block of mountain stages and this should allow Movistar to take less responsibility. Being up there on GC, Valverde will be an important tactical weapon that can put Froome under pressure. If he is his usual consistent and classy self, there is no reason that Valverde should not be able to finish on the podium alongside his teammate.

 

Valverde’s main strengths are of course his climbing skills and fantastic ability to limit his losses. Having initially struggled in the time trials after his suspension, he now seems to be time trialling better than ever before. He took a storming victory in the Spanish national championships and there is a solid chance that he will do better than his Colombian teammate in stage 10. On the other hand, he will lose a lot of time to Froome and it is very hard to imagine that he will be able to take that back in the mountains.

 

The Tour de France and his recent grand tour performances have underlined that Valverde is unlikely to add another grand tour to his palmares. In the next years, he may even have to ride in support of Quintana in the three-week races and he will have his first taste of that role in this year’s Vuelta. However, Valverde has probably had his best season ever and his consistency in his home grand tour is striking. Only a handful of riders are able to match Valverde at the end of a long season and even though he is unlikely to win the race, another podium spot is definitely within his reach. With Quintana offering him more tactical options, a stage win could crown what should be another consistent performance by the greatest Vuelta rider of his generation.

 

Chris Horner (***)

When asked to explain what he had learnt from his defeat in the 2013 Vuelta a Espana, Vincenzo Nibali said that he now knew that you should never underestimate any rider. The rider that had taught him the lesson in the most brutal way was a 41-year-old American who had just broken the record of being the oldest winner of a grand tour with a big margin.

 

Going into the Spanish grand tour, very few were mentioning Chris Horner as one of the favourites for the race. In fact, CyclingQuotes was one of the select media to include the American on our 15-rider list of men to watch but we had only assigned him a 1-star rating, believing that a podium spot would be the maximum achievable for the veteran. However, Horner defied all expectations and went on to take a deserved victory in a race where he was clearly the strongest rider.

 

Horner won a stage and took the leader’s jersey already on the third day but one day later he lost it due to a split in the peloton. At the time, he seemed to be pretty unfazed by the loss, claiming that the important thing was to have the jersey at the finish in Madrid. The statement brought about a few laughs as very few expected him to contend for the overall victory but Horner took it back when he won his second stage on the brutally steep Alto de Hazallanas. A poor time trial saw him drop down in the overall standings but the American kept taking back time in the mountains until he could finally achieve what is by far his best ever grand tour result.

 

What made Horner’s result remarkable was not only his age. The fact that he had been injured almost all season and only arrived at the start with the Tour of Utah in his legs made the performance even more noteworthy. Given the sport’s dark past, it was only natural for it to cause some suspicion but Horner released all the data from his biological passport in a quest to prove that he was clean.

 

Going into this year’s Vuelta, it is hard not to have a feeling of dèjà vu. Again Horner has had an injury setback and he lines up at the Vuelta much fresher than his rivals. Injury forced him out of both Tirreno-Adriatico and the Volta a Catalunya but he seemed to be back on track for his big goal at the Giro when he hit the deck during training and for a moment it seemed that his injuries could even have had much more severe consequences. However, Horner made a remarkable comeback and on June 19 he returned to competition in the Tour de Slovenie where he rode to a solid 14th place.

 

That result proved that he is already back at a decent level and it was enough to convince the Lampre-Merida management to include him on the Tour roster. Horner went into the race with the intention of supporting Rui Costa but was also keen to see how far he could come in GC himself. However, a severe bout of bronchitis hampered him throughout the second part of the race and he ended the race back in 17th.

 

Like last year he has finalized his preparation in the Tour of Utah and again it is hard to avoid the feeling of dèjà vu. Again he finished the race in second behind Tom Danielson after the pair had again been involved in an intense duel.

 

With his main results having been taken across the Atlantic, Horner has again flown under the radar and his name hasn’t featured regularly on the list of favourites in the star-studded line-up. Nonetheless, Horner claims that he was already in great condition at the Tour and only the illness prevented him from performing a lot better. In fact he claims to be stronger than he was 12 months ago which must be pretty scary for his rivals.

 

It would be a huge mistake to again underestimate Horner. In fact, his Vuelta win didn’t come from nowhere. In fact he has been suffering from a lot of bad luck over the last few years but when he has been injury-free, he has given lots of indications that he is one of the best climbers in the world. In 2009 he seemed to be on track for a great Vuelta when he crashed out of the race and one year later he finished in the top 10 in the Tour de France despite having worked as a domestique for most of the race. That same year he won the Vuelta al Pais Vasco – one of the hardest races on the calendar – overall and in 2011 he took a dominant victory in the Tour of California. In both 2012 and 2013 he climbed with the very best in Tirreno-Adriatico before he was set back by injury.

 

The mountainous course suits Horner well and it is no coincidence that he has taken his greatest results in Spain. The very steep gradients, relatively short climbs and short distance between the climbs make the race tailor-made for him and the many uphill finishes will provide him with ample opportunities to shine. However, this year’s course is a bit more balanced than last year’s festival of summit finishes and the amount of time trialling is bigger and the roads for the TTs are flatter. Horner has admitted that he doesn’t time trial very well and has been a bit cautious when assessing his possibilities. He expects to lose a massive amount of time to Froome in stages 10 and 21 and doesn’t seem too confident that he can take it back.

 

With a stronger field and a less suitable course, it may be hard for Horner to repeat last year’s win. However, the American has shown no signs of slowing down and if it’s true that he is in better condition than last year, he will be very hard to beat in the mountain stages. Again he has flown under the radar and while the media will focus on Froome and Quintana, there won’t be an awful lot of pressure on Horner’s shoulders The American seems to thrive in such a situation and enjoys his status as underdog. Having learnt Nibali’s lesson, it is only fitting to conclude this analysis the way we started: you should never underestimate anyone – especially not Chris Horner.