Vuelta boss somewhat fears dominant Jumbo-Visma: "A logical question, but I hope not"

With sweat trickling down his back from the heat, Guillén takes plenty of time when he realizes a Dutch cycling site (IDLProCycling.com is a sister site to Dutch cycling site indeleiderstrui.nl) is waiting. "The Netherlands! We love the Netherlands, especially after last year," he refers to the Vuelta start in Utrecht and Brabant in 2022. Now, a year later, we are back on Spanish soil, in Barcelona. "Every year we try to do something different from the year before. I must say that last year's route worked well, with a wonderful winner and a nice field of participants. Moreover, as a grand tour, you always want the race to be decided in the third week. That worked."

To be sure: Remco Evenepoel won his first grand tour in last year's Vuelta, with Primoz Roglic closely following him until the third week, but unfortunately dropping out due to a crash. Both gentlemen will be participating again this Saturday, as the stage race kicks off with a team time trial. But that's far from all. Tour winner Jonas Vingegaard is participating, INEOS Grenadiers is sending Geraint Thomas and Egan Bernal, Juan Ayuso and Enric Mas are the Spanish hopes, and then there are also João Almeida, Aleksandr Vlasov, and a whole host of emerging talent.

Guillén beams when confronted with the starting list. "A dream," he calls it. "We would have also loved to welcome Pogacar, but Vingegaard's participation was already a surprise. I was already very satisfied with the field of participants before Vingegaard was confirmed. Now we have the winners of the Giro, the Tour, and the world time-trial champion. This is a dream; this is one of the best starting lists in the history of the race. We'll see if everyone can deliver, but it's already a fantastic start."

A starting roster that would not be out of place in the Tour de France, but will we also get racing like in the Tour? Is Guillén not a little afraid that an ultra-strong Jumbo-Visma will dominate the Vuelta, as they did in the Tour? "It's a logical question, but I hope not," he laughs. "I know that Jumbo-Visma wants to win the Giro, Tour, and Vuelta in a single year, and that will be a big challenge. But Evenepoel will want to be reckoned with, and we, the Spanish people, we also believe in Ayuso. The Vuelta is also a tour where we are often surprised by riders, but it's true that Jumbo-Visma is currently the strongest team on paper. We will see how dominant they will be in practice."

In the Vuelta organization, they are living on cloud nine, especially because a lot of exciting talent is coming from the Spanish side towards Barcelona. Ayuso and Mas are there, but also Spanish champion Oier Lazkano, climbing talents Juan Pedro López (Lidl-Trek), Cristián Rodriguez (Arkéa) and big names like Marc Soler (UAE) and Luis Léon Sánchez (Astana) are participating. "It is very important that Ayuso and Mas are here; the Spanish fans need that. Spain has always delivered in the last fifty years, and people want to see riders like Contador, Indurain and Pereiro. It is important that the key Spanish riders are here, along with the biggest stars from the international circuit."

While there was a lot of climbing in the Tour, that has been a tradition in the Vuelta for years. On paper, there are about six sprint opportunities, but Guillén shakes his head when asked if he had expected more top sprinters to start for that reason. "I'm not surprised, because we are the grand tour where a lot of climbing takes place. It is a tough race that is always looking upwards. On paper, there might be many sprint chances, but anyone who really looks at the route knows that it's not for the pure sprinters. I count about six opportunities, but the Vuelta is not a sprint race."

The Spaniard also says he has made no effort to make the race more appealing to sprinters. It's clear that the Vuelta is not designed for that. "When we determine the route, we always look at what we have done and what we need to do. I quickly concluded that this course had to be extremely tough. This year, the World Championships are sandwiched between the Tour and the Vuelta, so we don't know what effect that will have on our race. But we've tried to offer something for everyone, with Andorra, the Tourmalet, the Angliru..."

Guillén mentions all those climbs as if they are nothing, but the truth is that the Vuelta has climbing challenges ready in all three weeks of the race. "What defines the Vuelta is the climbing, particularly in the second part of the stages and spread out over the tour. You want excitement throughout the race, not just at the beginning or the end. We notice that riders like coming to the Vuelta and want to win here, and that's also because this race is always decided in the final stages, it has always been that way. We want a fight, and I hope for that again with this lineup."

Nevertheless, we do not start the Vuelta on Saturday with a stage full of elevation. Guillén is a man of traditions, and the team time trial is part of that. This discipline has scarcely found a place on the cycling calendar in recent years, but after Utrecht, we also start in Barcelona with the race against the clock in team form. "The team time trial is very spectacular for me. It's different, and you see how the teams cooperate. I would like to start with it every year, but we don't. However, I do believe that the team time trial belongs in cycling, just like sprint stages, mountain stages and individual time trials."