Vuelta a Espaรฑa
This year, the Vuelta starts on Saturday from Italy, where the first 4 stages will be held, the 4^th^ finishing in France. Curiously, there is no rest day between this Italian sequence and the following stages in Spain. In spite of the presence of a high-speed train connection between the 4^th^ stage finish and the 5^th^ stage location, the transfer will be by plane.
There will be 1 time bonus sprint per stage. Depending on the stage, it will either be at one Intermediate Sprint or at the top of a categorised mountain climb.
For points classification: there will be 1 Intermediate Sprint per stage, rewarded by 20 points (only the first 5 riders score points). Concerning stages victories, only the very first and last stages bring 50 points; the rest (half-half) brings either 20 or 30 points; points are always awarded to the first 15 riders.
Mountain classification (white jersey with blue dots):
- 4^th^ cat. : 2 points (2 riders)
- 3^rd^ cat. : 3 points (3 riders)
- 2^nd^ cat. : 5 points (3 riders)
- 1^st^ cat. : 10 points (5 riders)
- HC : 15 points (6 riders)
- Angliru : 20 points (6 riders)
The 5 Pro-Teams engaged are: Q36.5, Lotto, IPT, and the 2 Spanish teams Burgos and Caja Rural. Kern Pharma who won 3 stages (!) last year was not invited.
Vingegaard (๐ฉ๐ฐ Visma), who has yet to win something this year, is probably the favourite for GC, with Almeida (๐ต๐น UAE) as a contender. Carapaz cancelled his participation again, after cancelling his participation on the Tour of France... Outsiders could be Tiberi (๐ฎ๐น Bahrein), Gall (๐จ๐ญ Decathlon), Ciccone (๐ฎ๐น Lidl-Trek), O'Connor (๐ฆ๐บ Jayco), perhaps Gaudu (๐ซ๐ท FDJ) if he suddenly returns to being a pro rider.
Pedersen (๐ฉ๐ฐ Lidl-trek) will go for the green jersey and stage wins. I fail to see any contender or even outsider, as there are almost no top sprinter (but Philipsen (๐ง๐ช Alpecin)) or 4x4 riders (but Pidcock (๐ฌ๐ง Q36.5) ?) on the startlist.
How about 10, then? ๐
Regulation-wise (the regulation about sprint zones), there even are 11. They include stage #3, which is actually a long false-flat.
Good lord, I guess Mads Pedersens most serious competitor to the points jersey will be a GC rider then!
Yeah, if GC riders do battle for stage victories (that's not always the case) he will have to be very regular, score a bit on all terrains and do every I.S.
On the other hand, the competition on sprinters' side looks thin and rather weak. Regulation-wise, there are 6 stages marked as likely bunch sprint, and only two of them bring 50-30-20-... points to the first riders. Among those 6 stages, stage #15 is not guaranteed to arrive as a bunch sprint, as that stage starts with... a 16 km climb (!); and the bunch may split in the final part of the #19 which ends up in a couple of km of steep-ish false-flat, after a last part the profile of which looks quite irregular.
The majority of I.S. look fine for Pedersen, they are often after one or more small, or longer but not steep, climbs which may even drop pure sprinters if a team like Lidl-Trek decides to pull strongly.
Beside the two 50-points stages, there are 8 30-points stages and another 8 20 points stages. Plus the ITT which is 20 points too. But there are 19 Intermediate Sprints which bring 20 points each. So aiming for I.S., and scoring a bit on stages as a bonus could be the way to go. However, there is an 'however': as I said in my post, points for I.S. are only afforded to the first 5 riders! So that means going very often in breakaways or having one's team control/chase so that they only allow tiny breakaway so that the points for 4^th^ and 5^th^ places are still avalaible for the bunch (5^th^ is still worth 10 points, 6^th is 0). But that mean a lot of work for a team which will also have to support Ciccone, supposedly.
Sorry if this was a bit confuse, I was thinking as I was writing and checking documentation ๐ Perhaps it means chances are balanced and that's a good thing?