The Vuelta is here. The third Grand Tour. The Spanish Grand Tour.
As the years tick by though, it is becoming evidently less and less Spanish. The race gets underway in Portugal this year. It’s only the fifth foreign start in the race’s history and two of them have been in the past three years. But this isn’t what I mean when I say the race’s Spanishness is diminishing. It’s not about geography, it’s about success.
This edition will mark 10 years since the Vuelta a España was won by a Spanish rider. A travesty. Un desastre! It’s not nearly at the level of the French at the Tour de France (39 years and counting), but this is how it happens. In 1995, France was still confident that another Bernard Hinault would be along shortly.
Ten years is the worst barren run the Spanish have had at their own race, smashing their previous record of six fruitless years between 1992 and 1997 when there was a Swiss takeover with Tony Rominger and Alex Zülle.
It’s not just the overall win that the home riders have been struggling with. It’s stage wins too. Since 2020, there have only been three stages won by Spanish riders, one for Marc Soler and two for Jesús Herrada, the saviour. In 2021 there were no stage wins. The ultimate embarrassment. A national shame that hadn’t occurred since 1996 (like I said, Rominger and Zülle). In the past five years the Spanish have racked up fewer stage wins than they managed in 2004 alone, when they managed 11.
So why is this? What is happening?
Well that year, 2004, is not a random one. This was the high watermark of Spanishification of the Vuelta. They won those 11 stages through nine different riders, Roberto Heras won the race overall for the third time and the other two spots on the podium were filled by Santiago Pérez and Francisco Mancebo. In fact, the entire top 10 on GC were Spanish. Of the top 25 at the end of the race, only two were not from Spain, two recent Giro d’Italia winners Stefano Garzelli in 11th and Damiano Cunego in 16th. Of the 189 riders that started the race in León in 2004, 82 of them represented Spain. There were 90 the year before and 80 the year before that. No other year outside of 2002-2004 has ever had more Spanish riders taking part. The Vuelta was very much a parochial affair.
This was all about to change. The UCI were about to enact their grand plan to make all the best riders take part in all the biggest races (hey that sounds familiar doesn’t it?) by unleashing the ProTour on us all. This would morph into the WorldTour as we know it now. It meant that 2005 was the first year that the Vuelta (and every other top level race) were obliged to invite all of the top teams. They could no longer hand out invites willy nilly to as many domestic teams as they fancied.
It's been 10 years since Alberto Contador delivered Spain's last home win (Getty Images)
The number of Spanish riders began to decline and has never stopped declining. The all-time low came in both 2015 and 2016 with just 27 riders on the startline. Last year was hardly much better with 28. The reduction in Spanish success is in large part just simple maths. Fewer Spanish riders equals fewer Spanish wins.
There was an all-Spanish podium in 2004. This wasn’t actually the last time this has happened. Once in the intervening years they have managed it, in 2012. And here lies the other main explanation for the recent scarcity of Spanish wins.
The 2012 Vuelta podium consisted of Alberto Contador, Alejandro Valverde and Joaquim Rodríguez. Together with Carlos Sastre and Samuel Sánchez this was the golden generation. Between them they won the Vuelta four times, managed 18 podium finishes and 35 stage wins. They were bankers, a guarantee of success.
Valverde was the last survivor, clinging on to the last vestiges of his ability until 2022 when he finally retired, about five years after his own hair had packed it in. Valverde’s last Vuelta stage win came in 2019, which perfectly coincides with the nosedive into the stage winning pit of despair where the Spanish currently find themselves.
Let’s not be all doom and gloom though. What silver linings can we find for the home riders? There are 32 Spanish riders in this year’s race which is four more than last year? Yeah, that’s clutching at straws a bit.
Perhaps the best reason to be cheerful is that one of those 32 riders is Carlos Rodríguez who is a genuine talent. With Juan Ayuso not taking part, Rodríguez is Spain’s best hope of overall success this year even though he is spearheading a malfunctioning Ineos Grenadiers.
For stage wins there is also Oier Lazkano, one of the most exciting riders to emerge from Spain in recent years. And of course there is always the smattering of B-list GC riders and opportunists who might catch a lucky break and nab a win along the way - Mikel Landa, Enric Mas, Ion Izagirre, Marc Soler or Pelayo Sánchez.
Spain and the Vuelta still have a long way to go to catch up with the desperate situation the French have found themselves in. There never really was a Spanish version of Bernard Hinault. So who are they waiting for? The next Valverde? The next Contador? They’d probably settle for the next Abraham Olano at this stage.
Cover image by Zac Williams/SWPix
