Kaden Groves won Vuelta green jersey in 2023 and 2024, but expectations are lower this time

While Mathieu van der Poel prepares to make his mountain bike return this weekend in Les Gets, France, Alpecin-Premier Tech will of course also line up at the Vuelta a España on Saturday. Kaden Groves will be one of the team’s main leaders after a 2026 season that, so far, has largely been one to forget. Groves himself is the first to admit it.

Groves missed most of the spring because of injury before working towards the Giro d’Italia. The Australian crashed in the sprint on the opening day in Burgas and was forced to abandon the race a few days later. In June, he also had to withdraw from the Tour de Suisse after several stages, before finally completing another race in Hamburg last Sunday, where Groves finished 100th.

Expectations ahead of the Vuelta are therefore not as high as they might normally have been. “It’s been a tough year, so a stage win would be amazing. That’s the main goal for me,” Groves said via the social media channels of his Alpecin-Premier Tech team.

Groves won the Vuelta a España points classification in 2023 and 2024, and although he is not making the green jersey his primary target this time, the Australian is not completely ruling it out either. “Maybe we can also see how the battle for the points jersey develops, although obviously that will be a tough fight against riders like Wout van Aert and Mads Pedersen. Hopefully we can simply win a stage, whether that’s me or someone else. It doesn’t matter who.”

This Vuelta is hardly designed with pure sprinters in mind, but an in-form Groves is capable of surviving significantly tougher stages than many of the fastest men in the peloton. “There aren’t many opportunities, especially in the opening days, but we’re still going to try to get results. We have a strong team, with a mix of experience and young talent,” concluded the Australian, who will have riders including Sente Sentjens and Lindsay De Vylder alongside him.