Primož Roglič wrapped up his fourth Vuelta a Espana title on Sunday, tying Roberto Heras’ record of four crowns. Both riders won four out of six consecutive editions in the 21st Century. Even their winning gaps are similar. Heras won by (ascending order) 0:28, 2:13, 2:33 and 4:36 and Roglič prevailed by 0:24, 2:33, 2:36 and 4:42. Roglič now has five Grand Tour trophies altogether. His new Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe squad—the strongest in the race despite being wracked with illness at the end—can boast two Grand Tour victories.
Roglič was second to Stefan Küng in Sunday’s concluding 24.6-km Madrid time trial.
It took the Slovenian two weeks to run down Ben O’Connor, an Aussie who should have never been allowed in a breakaway. O’Connor’s stage win on Stage 6 gave him a 4:51 edge over Roglič, one finally overcome on Friday’s 19th stage. O’Connor is the second best 2024 Grand Tour rider after Tadej Pogačar, having also achieved fourth in May’s Giro d’Italia.
Discounting a guy who just missed the podium in two previous Grand Tours was a huge mistake. Photo: Sirotti
Fatigue caused Michael Woods to not start Stage 17, giving him five DNF’s in his last six Grand Tours. Offsetting that was his third Vuelta stage win, his fourth career Grand Tour stage triumph.
Woods has more Grand Tour stage wins than any other Canadian. Photo: Sirotti
Five riders won multiple Vuelta stages: Roglič, Wout van Aert, Kaden Groves, Eddie Dunbar and Pablo Castrillo.
Despite not sweeping the Grand Tours like Visma-Lease a Bike did last season, UAE-Emirates had three stage victories via three different riders (Brandon McNulty, Adam Yates, Marc Soler), took home the King of the Mountain prize through yet another rider (Jay Vine) and claimed the team prize, something it also accomplished at the Tour de France. Soler was awarded the supercombativity prize. The team’s top man on GC was ninth place Pavel Sivakov.
Yates was a pre-race favourite, but he’ll settle for a stage win and 12th place.
Until the last few stages, the young rider classification was a scrap between Florian Lipowitz, Carlos Rodriguez and Matthias Skjelmose. Skjelmose pulled ahead in the final week and jumped over David Gaudu in the GC after Sunday’s time trial.
He didn’t finish his Grand Tour debut in this year’s Giro, but Florian Lipowitz at the Vuelta gave Red Bull its third 2024 Grand Tour GC top-10. Photo: Sirotti
2024 Grand Tour Rundown
Four riders finished in the top 10 of two 2024 Grand Tour general classifications: Tadej Pogačar (1st Giro, 1st Tour), Ben O’Connor (4th Giro, 2nd Vuelta), Mikel Landa (5th Tour, 8th Vuelta) and Carlos Rodriguez (7th Tour, 10th Vuelta).
Four teams could boast two GC riders in a 2024 Grand Tour top 10: Ineos at the Giro (Geraint Thomas and Thymen Arensman); heavyweights UAE-Emirates (Pog and João Almeida), Soudal-QuickStep (Remco Evenepoel and Landa) and Visma-Lease a Bike (Jonas Vingegaard and Matteo Jorgenson) at the Tour de France; and Red Bull at the Vuelta. Three teams had riders in all three top 10s: UAE-Emirates, Ineos and Soudal-QuickStep.
The only ProTeam squads to place riders in the top 10 were Israel-Premier Tech’s Derek Gee at the Tour and Tudor’s Michael Storer in the Giro, ninth and tenth respectively. Five of the 63 stages on offer in the 2024 Grand Tours went to ProTeam riders. Anthony Turgis scored for TotalEnergies at the Tour de France, as did Lotto-Dstny’s Victor Campenaerts, who is off to Visma next season. At the Vuelta, Equipo Kern Pharma was fire, grabbing three wins, two through surely-WorldTeam-bound Pablo Castrillo.
Castrillo was the revelation of the Vuelta. Photo: Sirotti
Six WorldTour teams placed no riders in any Grand Tour GC top-10 this season: Alpecin-Fenix (made up for it with sprint wins), Arkea-B&B, Astana, Cofidis, Intermarché-Wanty and Jayco-AlUla. The latter came close, as Filippo Zana was 11th in the Giro, Simon Yates 12th in the Tour and Dunbar 11th in the Vuelta. Ben O’Connor will race for Jayco for the next two seasons.
2024 Vuelta a España Stage 21
1) Stefan Küng (Switzerland/Groupama-FDJ) 26:28
2) Primož Roglič (Slovenia/Red Bull) +0:30
3) Mattia Cattaneo (Italy/Soudal-QuickStep) +0:41
2024 Vuelta a España Final GC
1) Primož Roglič (Slovenia/Red Bull) 81:49:18
2) Ben O’Connor (Australian/Decathlon-AG2R) +2:36
3) Enric Mas (Spain/Movistar) +3:13
4) Richard Carapaz (Ecuador/EF Education-Easypost) +4:02
5) Matthias Skjelmose (Denmark/Lidl-Trek) +5:49
6) David Gaudu (France/Groupama-FDJ) +4:48
7) Florian Lipowitz (Germany/Red Bull) +6:32
8) Mikel Landa (Spain/Soudal-QuickStep) +8:48
9) Pavel Sivakov (France/UAE-Emirates) +10:04
10) Carlos Rodriguez (Spain/Ineos) +11:19
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