How to Watch the 2023 Vuelta a España
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As the season’s final grand tour, the Vuelta a España (“Tour of Spain”) is always a bit of a “last-chance saloon” as riders often use the race to try and redeem themselves for missed opportunities earlier in the year, build form for late-season races, and in some cases, earn a new contract.
Stuck in the shadow of May’s Tour of Italy and July’s Tour de France, we love how the Vuelta’s organizers always go to great lengths to create a spectacular course—usually by including lots and lots of climbs. (In fact, there are so many climbing stages in this year’s race that the organizers have created sub-categories just to describe them all: “hilly stages,” mountain stages,” and “flat stages with uphill finishes.” If you’re a sprinter, this isn’t the race for you.
Beginning this Saturday in the Barcelona, this year’s Vuelta covers 3,153km (1,955mi) over 21 stages, including a team time trial, an individual time trial, 15(!) stages with uphill or summit finishes, and one of the deepest list of contenders in any grand tour in the last 10 years.
Here’s everything you need to know.
Dates
Saturday, August 26 to Sunday, September 17
The Route
The 2023 Vuelta a España begins on Saturday with a short, technical team time trial through the streets of Barcelona that will determine the first rider to pull on the red jersey as the leader of the Vuelta’s General Classification. But it’s just 14.6km, so time gaps are expected to be small. Stage 2 could end in a field sprint in Barcelona–if the sprinters make it over a climb late in the race–and Stage 3 brings the race’s first summit finish–a Category 1 climb to the Andorran village of Arinsal. Stages 4 and 5 are expected to be days for the sprinters, with flat finishes in Tarragona and Burriana.
The rest of the first brings more climbing, with a summit finish on Stage 6 (atop the Category 1 climb to the Astrophysical Observatory of Javalambre), a near-summit finish on Stage 8 (the finish line comes just 3km after the Category 1 Xorret de Catí), and another summit finish Stage 9 (on the Category 2 Caravaca de la Cruz). The sprinters should enjoy Stage 7, which offers a pancake-flat finish along the Mediterranean coast.
The second week brings the race north–to Valladolid–for Stage 10, the Vuelta’s only individual time trial. With just one small “bump” early in the stage, the 25km race against the clock should suit the Vuelta’s time trial specialists. Stage 11 brings another summit finish (on the Category 1 climb to Laguna Negra), and Stage 12 could see crosswinds blow the race apart, as they often do on days that end in Zaragoza.
Stage 13 is maybe the hardest stage in the entire grand tour with four major climbs, over 4,000 meters of elevation gain crammed into just 134.7km, and a summit atop the most famous climb in the Pyrenees: the “Beyond Category” Col du Tourmalet.
Stage 14 offers no rest for the weary, with four more categorized ascents including two “Beyond Category” climbs midway through the stage and new summit finish on the Punto Belagua at the end. The second week ends on Sunday with Stage 15, a punchy stage through the Basque Country that–depending on how tight the GC standings are–could be the perfect day for an ambush.
The third week begins with Stage 16, a flat stage that starts along the coast, but ends with a summit finish on the Category 2 climb to La Hermida, a 5km climb with ramps of 14%. But Stage 17–a 122.6km stage with three categorized climbs including a summit finish on the “Beyond Category” Altu de l’Angliru, a 12.5km climb with a 10% average gradient and pitches that hit 24%–is the focal point of the third week.
Stage 18 brings the third consecutive summit finish of the third week, at the end of a 178km day with five categorized climbs–including a Category 1 ascent to the finish line atop the La Cruz de Linares. Any sprinters who have survived the last two weeks will appreciate Stage 19: it’s one of the flattest in this year’s Vuelta.
If it hasn’t been decided already, Stage 20 will settle things once and for all with a 208km stage (the longest in this year’s race) with ten categorized climbs (that’s not a typo). None of these climbs are particularly challenging, but they add up to over 4,000meters of elevation gain, which means Stage 20 should bring the fight to win the 2023 Tour of Spain to a dramatic conclusion–just before Stage 21 brings the race itself to a close in Madrid with a flat stage that will give the Vuelta’s remaining sprinters one last chance to shine.
How to Watch the Vuelta a España
If you subscribed to NBC’s Peacock Premium ($4.99/month) before the Tour de France (and didn’t cancel after the Tour de France Femmes), then you can stream all 21 stages of the 2023 Vuelta. The Peacock app is available on Roku, Apple devices, Android and AndroidTV devices, Google platforms, Chromecast, Xbox devices, Playstation 4 and 4 Pro, VIZIO SmartCast TVs, and LG Smart TVs. You can also watch online via the Peacock website.
If you’re in Canada, FloBikes ($12.99/month) is the best way to watch the Tour of Spain, with all 21 stages available live and on-demand on FloBikes.com, the FloSports IOS app, and the FloSports app for Amazon FireTV, Roku, and Apple TV.
What Happened Last Year
Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) overcame the pressure of being the country’s “Next Eddy Merckx'' and ended his nation’s 44-year grand tour drought, winning the 2022 Tour of Spain. The 22-year-old took the red jersey on Stage 6 and defended it all the way to Madrid, defeating Spain’s Enric Mas (Movistar) by 2:02 and Juan Ayuso by 4:57. Along the way Evenepoel won Stages 10 and 18 and the white jersey as the Vuelta’s Best Young Rider.
After abandoning the 2022 Tour de France due to injuries sustained in a crash during the Tour’s opening week, Slovenia’s Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) looked ready to try and win the Spanish grand tour for the fourth year in a row. He won a stage and wore the red jersey for a day during the opening week, but crashed at the end of Stage 16. Second overall at the time, he was forced to abandon the race due to his injuries.
Evenepoel and Roglič will both be back in 2023, alongside a list of contenders that reads like a Who’s Who of the best grand tour riders of the past 5 years.
Riders to Watch
Remco Evenepoel (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl)
Evenepoel wasn’t supposed to be riding the Tour of Spain, but after testing positive for COVID-19 at the Giro d’Italia in May (his biggest race of the season), the team decided to let him try and defend his title. After winning a gold medal in the time trial at the recent world championships in Glasgow he went right back to training at altitude, where he’s been posting some impressive numbers on Zwift. The 23-year-old is clearly up to the challenge of defending his title, but his team? That remains to be seen.
Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma)
At May’s Giro d’Italia, Roglič overcame last season’s disappointment to add the Italian grand tour to his resume. Now he heads to Spain hoping to win the Vuelta for a fourth time, giving his team a clean sweep of this year’s grand tours in the process. He won last week’s Vuelta a Burgos, so he’s clearly rested and well-prepared. And he co-leads the deepest team in the race alongside Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard, who could prove to be one of his biggest challengers.
Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma)
After defending his Tour de France title this past July, Vingegaard was quick to announce that he would ride the Vuelta with the hopes of keeping his team’s grand tour winning streak alive. Assuming he’s recovered from his Tour-winning effort he’ll be a top contender–especially in such a mountainous race. If he hasn’t, he’ll ride for Roglič, forming one of the best 1-2 punches the race has ever seen.
Geraint Thomas (INEOS Grenadiers)
Thomas was on the verge of winning May’s Giro d’Italia, but cracked on the penultimate day and turned the pink jersey over to Roglič. Now he leads INEOS at the Vuelta, a strange choice given all the climbing the race has on tap. Then again, he’s their most accomplished and consistent grand tour contender currently, and has had all summer to prepare.
Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates)
Were it not for Evenepoel, Ayuso would have been the revelation of last year’s race after finishing third at just 19-years-old. He co-leads this year’s team alongside Portugal’s João Almeida–who finished third at the Giro–and the team’s ability to juggle their co-captaincy will determine their level of success.
João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates)
Almeida scored a stage win and his grand tour podium finish at the Giro. He comes to the Vuelta hoping to build on those results. Assuming he and Ayuso are able to cooperate, the two of them could be the second UAE tandem to join each other on a grand tour podium this season. (Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar and Great Britain’s Adam Yates finished second and third at the Tour de France.)
Enric Mas (Movistar)
A three-time runner-up, Mas is one of the Vuelta’s biggest bridesmaids. But given this year’s startlist, a second-place finish would be a big accomplishment.
Other riders to watch include Russia’s Aleksandr Vlasov (BORA-hansgrohe), the runner-up at the recent Vuelta a Burgos; France’s Romain Bardet (Team DSM), who’s hunting for a mountain stage win; and the United States’ Sepp Kuss (jumbo-Visma), who’s hoping to win his third grand tour of the season as Jumbo-Visma’s best mountain domestique.
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