Vuelta a Espana 2024: The race for the red jersey - A UAE treble or Sepp Kuss versus Primoz Roglic redux?

Seldom have we seen such a clamouring for a rider to be added to the Vuelta a Espana start sheet. After Tadej Pogacar completed the first Giro-Tour double in more than a generation, cycling fans around the world were eager for him to sign on for Spain to target an unprecedented clean sweep. But if riding three Grand Tours in a single season is hard enough, being competitive in all of them is an order of magnitude greater. The Slovenian has opted to take a well-earned break from racing and is expected to next pin on a pair of numbers at September's Grand Prix of Quebec and Montreal.

The organisers themselves were less eager for Pogacar to put in an appearance than one of his team-mates. Juan Ayuso is the big Spanish hope, but he is, as easy as it is to forget, still only 21. His employers evidently have decided to put the rider’s long-term prospects ahead of the race’s immediate interests and are instead sending a squad of mere demi-galacticos. Adam Yates and Joao Almeida are the two tipped as plans A and A but Pavel Sivakov, Jay Vine and Brandon McNulty all have stage race records that mark them out as back-up contenders. That’s without even mentioning Mexican prodigy Isaac Del Toro. Although we just did. 

The big question is whether any of those can challenge either of the pedigree-proven favourites. Having had his Tour de France role curtailed by Covid, reigning champ Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike) is battling with former colleague Primoz Roglic. Now at Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe, it is three years since Roglic clinched a hat-trick of Vuelta titles and some are reading into this season’s results a decline in powers.

Until the evidence indicates otherwise, however, Roglic will be regarded as one of the so-called 'Big Four'. That puts an almighty target on his back. How true are his rivals’ aim?

The Vuelta is seen as the grubby nightclub your friends drag you to after the partying should really be over. It's hot and heavy and always the most enormous fun. Who will be dancing 'til dawn? And who will overdo it and head home early? That will all be revealed on the road.

In our opinion, the bookies are being a bit generous when it comes to the incumbent. By most accounts, Sepp Kuss has had a fairly anonymous year, showing little like the form that carried him to the title in Madrid 12 months ago. Fortunately, that “little” seems to have come at the perfect time, as he claimed a close but comfortable GC win (plus one stage) last week in Burgos. Fate conspired to give him July off, which means not only does he have less to show for his season than he might want, but his legs should be fresher than most. The - frankly excessive - volume of vertical to come means this is also a course that should suit Kuss down to the ground.

Yet it is fair to ask whether the Durangan wants to take on the burden of leadership again, which rather came to him by accident last time. The impression is he enjoyed it more first time around than he imagined he would, and will be wearing No. 1 regardless. He might as well embrace it, eh? At least this time he should not find himself incumbered by internal competition. For as much as many are looking to will it, this is not the year for Wout van Aert to become a general classification rider, and his pipping Kuss to seventh place in the Volta ao Algarve back in February is evidence of nothing at all.

Such was Roglic’s dominance at the Vuelta that it is strange to think his last win was almost three years ago. Having tasted victory in last season’s Giro d'Italia, might he now regard the Vuelta as a bit of a backward step or consolation prize? 

Whether he does or not, he is unlikely to admit it, either explicitly or by any implication of his riding. None can deny that Roglic likes winning bike races. When he is able to stay upright, he tends to be quite good at it.

He also has something to prove and pay back to his new team. Red Bull will not yet consider a Dauphine title a sufficient return on their investment, but a Grand Tour might do the trick. 

In Nico Denz, Roger Adria and Patrick Gamper, Roglic will have some reliable rouleurs around him for support; in Danny Martinez he’ll have possibly the most valuable mountain domestique in the game (at least of those who have yet to take the step up to team leadership). That is unless the Colombian, who finished second at this year’s Giro, is taking part more as a secret Plan B?

No Ayuso? No problem. No matter how much concern they had for his well-being, UAE Emirates would not have left out their prodigious Barcelona man if they did not believe in the alternatives. Having claimed the first two Grand Tours of the season they have their eye on a clean sweep. 

Although neither Adam Yates nor Joao Almeida has previously stood on the top step at the end of three weeks, both know well what it is like to be the best of the rest. The distance between them and “the best” is smaller than you would imagine, too. It is even smaller in the absence of the two generational talents, Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard.

Almeida has finished inside the top 10 in each of the six Grand Tours he has completed, podiuming once. Yates has a slightly spottier record, owing to a difficult final few seasons at the Australian Greenedge outfit. Since joining UAE Emirates, he has looked better than ever, even arguably overtaking brother Simon in the family rankings.

For his part, Almeida has been knocking on the door since his emergence in 2020. His best Grand Tour finish to date is third behind Roglic and Thomas in last year’s Giro d’Italia. All eyes will be on him as he rides on local roads this weekend - Sunday’s stage passes directly through his home town. That will surely inspire confidence, though whether it will be enough to carry him over the many hills to Madrid is another matter entirely.

The bookies cannot separate these two, so neither will we. 

Arguably the most talented rider of the last decade not to win a Grand Tour, Mikel Landa frustrates as often as he delights. Possibly he frustrates us because we know how capable he is of delighting. We are convinced that he can, so why has he not?

That Landa only has two Grand Tour podiums on his palmares makes no logical sense. Surely one of those fourth, fifth, or sixths at Le Tour could be worth a win in Italy or Spain

But surely if he was going to win one he already would have?

That he is fifth favourite (not just with us but with the bookmakers) is a reflection more of desire than logical belief. The support he gave to Remco Evenepoel at Le Tour in July - which saw him ride to perhaps the most impressive of those fifth-placed finishes -  earned him his leadership slot here, but he probably does not have the team he needs.

Maybe James Knox will be able to stay with him on higher ground but for the most part he will be on his own when the road rears up. Another podium is probably the best the Basque rider can hope for, but we will soon see if he believes in better.

There was a time, not too long ago, when the young rider competition was in danger of being rendered redundant. Grand Tour contenders were blossoming so early that they were bypassing white and shooting straight for pink, yellow or red. Yes, we are talking about Pogacar and Remco, but before them Nairo Quintana and Miguel Angel Lopez, to name just a few.

Normal service seems to have resumed, as the Vuelta looks set up for a similarly fascinating battle between several of the same contenders for blanca. 23, 24, 23 and 21 respectively, this Vuelta offers a learning experience for all three. Cian Uijtddebroeks (Visma-Lease a Bike) will have domestique duties to cater to, but working for Kuss should not be incompatible with modest individual ambitions.

Carlos Rodriguez and Thymen Arensman will be duking it out within the Ineos Grenadiers hierarchy for team captaincy but there is nothing to say both should not be given fairly free rein until it has been decided. Realistically, the Spaniard, who was second in this same competition at Le Tour, might be too far into his season for another three-week fight and might prefer to look towards individual stages or serving as foil for his team-mate. Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious) has already one Grand Tour white jersey to his name this season. Why should he not make it two?

If Enric Mas (Movistar) was going to win the Vuelta you have to think he would have done so by now. Twice the bridesmaid [to Roglic and Remco] he is usually there or thereabouts, but it is only getting harder for him. 

His team-mate, Einer Rubio, is going to be pushing for frontman status, and his seventh place at the Giro makes the case for Mas and Quintana to be working for him, rather than the other way round. (By the way, we’d dearly love to include Nairo in this category, but we just can’t see it.)

We know Richard Carapaz (EF Education-Easy Post) can do it over three weeks, because we have seen him do it over three weeks. He might prefer stage hunting, but with no one else on his team to tilt at a long campaign, he will surely be expected by his team to keep caution in his jersey pockets rather than throwing it to the wind.

Ben O’Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) is riding one of his last races for the French team before departing for native pastures. But for Pogacar, he would have made the final podium of the Giro which shows he is perfectly capable of it. Anything more might have to wait for his new squad.

Ordinarily, these would be separate categories. Looking at the line-up, and the various riders’ respective form, and it is a bit “well, it depends.” Talents to a man, all five would offer “consistency” as their major weakness if asked in a job interview.

All of these riders could harbour any of these ambitions. Which they end up with is likely to come down to a process of elimination. 

Austrian Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) is not yet the finished product so this should give us some indication of what that will eventually look like. A stage winner at the Tour de France already in 2023, one here is the least he can expect to deliver.

No one is more of an expensive creased suit than Guillaume Martin (Cofidis), who transfers to Groupama-FDJ next season in the hope that Marc Madiot can iron him out. More likely he will become a version of Thibaut Pinot, but this is his last chance in Cofidis red to prove he is something more.

And if not Martin then Gaudu, who is already at the national team and who was briefly the great French hope himself. Two stages of the Vuelta in 2020 is so far the highlight of his career, with only a single WorldTour win coming his way since. If he does not deliver this month he can expect his boss’ infamous hairdryer treatment.

Giulio Ciccone (Lidl–Trek) is perhaps the most elegant, classy and fundamentally decent rider in the peloton today. He prefers the Grand Tours of Italy and France to Spain, where he has appeared only once and never finished. Any of these outcomes is well within him. Which will it be?

**** Sepp Kuss, Primoz Roglic

*** Joao Almeida, Adam Yates

** Mikel Landa, Enric Mas, Einer Rubio, Richard Carapaz, Ben O’Connor

* Felix Gall, David Gaudu, Guillaume Martin, Giulio Ciccone

1. Sepp Kuss, 2. Primoz Roglic, 3. Mikel Landa, 4. Joao Almeida, 5. Adam Yates, 6. Einer Rubio, 7. Richard Carapaz, 8. Enric Mas, 9. Guillaume Martin, 10. Giulio Ciccone

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Stream the 2024 Vuelta a Espana live on discovery+.