Date: Thursday 11 September
Distance: 27.2km Individual Time Trial
Start location: Valladolid
Finish location: Valladolid
Start time: 13:12 CEST
Finish time: 17:30 CEST
The city of Valladolid was one of the most powerful and important during the Spanish Golden Age of the early modern period, and many of the most famous names of that era have associations here. This was the residence of the Kings of Castile from the fifteenth century, after it was made capital of the empire in 1601, while Miguel de Cervantes lived here when the first part of his seminal novel Don Quixote was published in 1605. This was the era of colonial expansion into the New World, and Christopher Columbus died here in 1506 having moved late in life.
While we now tend to think of anti-colonialism and arguments against the actions of the likes of Columbus as more of a modern concern, there were those who spoke out against the treatment of indigenous people during the European conquests of America. As early as 1550 Valladolid hosted what was the first moral debate regarding this. The Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas documented and argued against the brutality towards Indigenous people, opposing the other view at that debate that claimed they were not fully human, and was later appointed as the first Protector of the Indians.
As for Vuelta a España history, Valladolid has hosted many significant stages featuring headline turns from some of the sport’s most famous icons, particularly in time trials — of which today’s 27.2km stage will be the latest. In 1964 Raymond Poulidor dramatically took the overall lead with just three days left by winning the time trial, and held on to what would be the sole Grand Tour title of his whole career. Bernard Hinault claimed victory here in 1983 while gaining precious time over Julián Gorospe, who he went on to usurp at the top of the classification to take his second Vuelta overall victory. And in 1992 defending champion Tony Rominger crushed the opposition, putting 20 seconds into the next best rider, Alex Zülle, over the course of just 9km to take the yellow jersey, which he held for the entirety of the race.
Will today’s stage prove to be just as significant? 27.2km is not an awful lot of road to make a difference, and pales in comparison to the number of kilometres the riders spend climbing throughout this Vuelta, especially on summit finishes. But, as the only individual time trial of the race (and one with the kind of pan flat parcours that favours the specialists), for any riders in the GC race who have been evenly-matched on the climbs, this could be the terrain that proves to be the tiebreaker.
Contenders
Of the overall contenders, the best time triallists are the top-two Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), who will be up aga
Both also have teammates who are strong time triallists in Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Jay Vine, Juan Ayuso and Ivo Oliveira(UAE Team Emirates-XRG).
There are a number of time trial specialists at this Vuelta including Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ), Bruno Armirail (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team) and Filippo Ganna, alongside his Ineos Grenadiers teammates Bob Jungels and Magnus Sheffield.
Dan Hoole (Lidl-Trek) and Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain-Victorious) will also be hoping for top results at the TT.
Prediction
We believe Stefan Küng will win the TT as it is relatively short, which suits his attributes.
