Favorites stage 10 Vuelta a España 2023 | Evenepoel aims to crush Jumbo-Visma, Ganna on pins and needles

The individual time trial in the Vuelta is 25.8 kilometers long, making it shorter than the time trial held on day ten last year. Last year's route went from Elche to Alicante, mostly on straight and flat roads. It fit specialist Evenepoel like a glove, who was 48 seconds faster than Primoz Roglic. These are the two men we expect to see leading on Tuesday as well.

The course, however, is different this year. Aside from the length, the difficulty level is just a bit higher. Both the starting and finishing locations are in Valladolid, which means we will make a loop. Initially, the route is winding with a bit of climbing. The gradients on this small climb do not exceed six percent, so riders can basically stomp through on power.

The little climb in the opening stage of the time trial....

After a technical opening, the riders will make a right turn after about ten kilometers, followed suddenly by straight and flat terrain. A loop takes us back to Valladolid, where riders can wave at each other on the long, straight roads. In terms of difficulty, there are only four corners and two roundabouts in the last fifteen kilometers; otherwise, it seems like ideal terrain for the powerhouses.

Times
Start first rider: 1:57 p.m.
Finish last rider: around 5:30 p.m.

After an unpredictable first week of weather, the weather gods for the time-trial day appear to be in a good mood. Sunny weather is expected in and around Valladolid, with maximum temperatures of 26 degrees Celsius. Wind will hardly be a factor, allowing everyone to compete under equal conditions for the stage win (and time gains).

A technical start, followed by a section for the specialists. We're therefore looking at the true time-trialists in the peloton, and naturally, that leads us to world champion Remco Evenepoel. The Belgian needs to make up time on Sepp Kuss and has estimated he could gain about two minutes. For the time trial, he will probably be looking more at the other two riders in black and yellow.

With Primoz Roglic and Jonas Vingegaard, Jumbo-Visma indeed has two excellent time trialists on their team. To put it mildly, Vingegaard was a couple of minutes faster than everyone else at his peak form in the Tour, including specialist Wout van Aert. Roglic, for his part, has always been a good time trialist; he is, after all, the reigning Olympic champion in this discipline. After a shoulder surgery in 2022, we are very curious to see if he has already regained that level, or if he will have to cede some ground to Evenepoel as he did last year.

We expect other general classification contenders like Juan Ayuso to also perform well. The Spaniard from UAE Team Emirates has already impressed on the time-trial bike this year, winning time trials in the Tour of Romandie and the Tour of Switzerland. To a slightly lesser extent, we also expect something from João Almeida (also UAE), who should not be discounted.

All these gentlemen will have to compete against specialists who may have been secretly preparing for this time trial for days. Think of Filippo Ganna, who saw his two leaders at INEOS Grenadiers, Geraint Thomas and Thymen Arensman, drop out (in the case of Arensman, even literally), allowing the Italian to go all-in on Tuesday. The same applies to Stefan Bissegger (EF) and Mattia Cattaneo (Quick Step), who on a good day are both worldclass.

As for outsiders? That's often difficult in a time trial, but Lennard Kämna, for instance, is in good form. The German from BORA-hansgrohe won the ninth stage and is an excellent time-trialist when he sets his mind to it. The same goes for Finn Fisher-Black (UAE) and Jan Tratnik (Jumbo-Visma), but it remains to be seen whether they will be allowed to go full throttle by their team leaders. Finally, we're quite curious to see how Rune Herregodts will fare against the best time-trialists, representing Intermarché-Circus-Wanty.

Top favorites: Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step) and Filippo Ganna (INEOS Grenadiers)
Outsiders: Jonas Vingegaard, Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma), Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) and Stefan Bissegger (EF Education-EasyPost)
Longshots: Mattia Cattaneo (Soudal-Quick Step), Matteo Sobrero (Jayco-AlUla), João Almeida, Finn Fisher-Black (UAE Team Emirates), Lennard Kämna (BORA-hansgrohe), Jan Tratnik (Jumbo-Visma) and Rune Herregodts (Intermarché)