Primoz Roglic’s to lose? The red jersey contenders hoping to surprise the Slovenian at La Vuelta 2022

A month after withdrawing from the Tour de France with a fractured vertebrae, Primoz Roglic will return to action at the Vuelta a Espana in his bid to win a fourth successive red jersey.

A course that features fewer steep climbs than usual, an opening team time trial plus a 30km flat individual race against the clock, should suit the 32-year-old Slovenian and his Jumbo-Visma team – provided Roglic has fully recovered from the knock that forced him out of the Tour for a second year running.

Waiting in the wings are a cluster of big-name riders including the 2018 and 2016 champions Simon Yates (BikeExchange-Jayco) and Nairo Quintana (Arkea-Samsic), Giro d’Italia winners past and present, Richard Carapaz and Tao Geoghegan Hart (both Ineos Grenadiers) and Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe), Spanish climbers Enric Mas (Movistar) and Mikel Landa (Bahrain Victorious), Portuguese all-rounder Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) and the Belgian tyro Remco Evenepoel (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl).

The 77th edition of La Vuelta will also play host to the final Grand Tour appearance in the careers of Alejandro Valverde (Movistar), Vincenzo Nibali (Astana-Qazaqstan) and, perhaps, Domenico Pozzovivo (Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert Materiaux). Former champions Chris Froome (Israel-PremierTech) and Nairo Quintana (Arkea-Samsic) will also be on the start list for the race, which starts with the 23.2km TTT in the Dutch city of Utrecht on Friday.

Below Felix Lowe runs through the contenders for the red jersey, giving each rider a star rating out of five.

5 stars: Primoz Roglic

The general consensus is that this Vuelta is Roglic’s to lose – provided he is back to full fitness following his fall in Stage 5 of the Tour. It’s a big if – and perhaps not even Roglic or his team will know until he rolls down the ramp on Friday or, more likely, tackles the first summit finish next Wednesday.

But if ever there was a Vuelta parcours on which to gradually ride yourself back to fitness and form, this is it. With none of the fiendishly steep slopes such as the Angliru, Lagos de Covadonga, Gamoniteiru, Covatilla or Los Machucos featuring on the route – and the riders only once venturing above 2,000 metres – this is a Vuelta where traditional leg-sapping gradients will be something of a wistful memory.

A pained and half-fit Roglic showed the damage he could do while riding in support of teammate Jonas Vingegaard in July – and with some solid climbers and experienced riders around him at Jumbo-Visma, he has a great shot at becoming the first rider in history to win four consecutive editions of La Vuelta.

4 stars: Richard Carapaz

This is perhaps not the route best suited to the Ecuadorian’s strengths while Ineos Grenadiers are certainly hedging their bets by including Tao Geoghegan Hart, Pavel Sivakov and Carlos Rodriguez as back-up GC options, but Carapaz has an excellent chance at improving on his second place from 2020, when he came runner-up to Roglic by just 24 seconds.

Since then, Carapaz has come third in the 2021 Tour and runner-up in this year’s Giro – a disappointing result which he will now hope to avenge. That said, there is a huge question mark over the 29-year-old’s form: he has only seven race days in his legs since the Giro, and that all came in a Tour de Pologne in which he did very little en route to coming 22nd.

If Carapaz gets a four-star rating it is by reputation alone – but the same can be said for Roglic’s five stars.

3 stars: Jai Hindley, Enric Mas, Joao Almeida, Simon Yates, Mikel Landa

Bora-Hansgrohe’s Hindley beat Carapaz to become the first Australian to win the Giro in May but like his Ecuadorian rival he has only seven race days in his legs since. While he did put in a better showing at the Vuelta a Burgos than Carapaz in Poland, the 26-year-old enters unchartered territory: never before has Hindley ridden more than one Grand Tour in a single season.

The same does not apply for Movistar’s Mas, who had taken on both the Tour and Vuelta for the past two seasons, making the top five on all but one occasion. The Spaniard was clearly hampered when he withdrew from the Tour this July with Covid while on the fringes of the top 10 and the 27-year-old will look to bounce back with a strong showing in his home country.

Landa (Bahrain Victorious) came third in the Giro and – those two TTs aside – will relish this course, but enters with just five race days to his name since May. Portugal’s Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) rides his first Grand Tour outside the Giro and will do so off the back of some good form in Burgos and winning the Portuguese road race back in June.

And finally, for the three-star riders, Britain’s Yates (BikeExchange-Jayco) returns to the Vuelta for the first time since he won the red jersey four years ago. Since pulling out of the Giro with Covid, Yates has picked up three wins – although he enters the race without the strongest ensemble around him.

2 stars: Wilco Kelderman, Ben O’Connor, Pavel Sivakov, Remco Evenepoel, Hugh Carthy, Miguel Angel Lopez, Nairo Quintana, Tao Geoghegan Hart

Dutchman Kelderman (Bora-Hansgrohe) has finished in the top 10 in his last three appearances and should be a solid Plan B should teammate Hindley fail to replicate his form from the Giro. Britain’s Geoghegan Hart (Ineos Grenadiers) famously got the better of both riders in the 2020 Giro but his stock has dropped since that surprise maglia rosa win. It’s likely that the 27-year-old will ride in support of teammate Carapaz, but a solid showing in Spain would do his confidence a world of good.

A safer bet from Ineos, perhaps, comes in the form of in-form Frenchman Sivakov, winner of the Vuelta a Burgos recently and runner-up last month in the Donostia San Sebastian Klasikoa. The rider who (comprehensively) bettered him in San Sebastian was the Belgian sensation Evenepoel (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl), who makes his Vuelta debut.

Evenepoel is many people’s favourite for the red jersey but that seems highly fanciful: he’s never completed a Grand Tour before, is largely unproven in races longer than one week, and has a tendency to blow up on long or steep climbs – not ideal for a race like the Vuelta. That said, of all Vuelta routes in recent history, this is one that could favour a coming-of-age ride from the 22-year-old, so discount Remco at your peril.

Britain’s Carthy (EF Education-EastPost) came ninth in the Giro but has been a shadow of the rider who won on the Angliru to cement a podium position in the Vuelta two years ago. The form and mental fragility of Colombia’s Lopez (Astana-Qazaqstan) is also very suspect: he’s failed to finish his last four Grand Tours, most notably pulling out of last year’s Vuelta on the eve of the final stage in a hissy-fit that saw his contract at Movistar torn up.

Another Colombian who seems far more reliable despite his advancing years is Quintana (Arkea-Samsic), who enjoyed something of a renaissance in finishing sixth in the Tour. He came fourth in his last Vuelta back in 2019 and will also be riding for a new contract in 2023.

Australian O’Connor (Ag2R-Citroen) will hope for some retribution after his Tour travails, where a series of crashes and illness combined to pull the carpet from under the feat of the rider who came fourth one year before. On paper, this is a route that should have a fit O’Connor salivating and dreaming of a high finish in Madrid.

1 star: Alejandro Valverde, Vincenzo Nibali, Thibaut Pinot, Louis Meintjes, Jack Haig, Sepp Kuss, Juan Pedro Lopez

Gone are the days when veterans Valverde (Movistar) and Nibali (Astana-Qazaqstan) can be considered genuine GC threats – and both will be riding more in pursuit of a farewell stage win rather than the red jersey. But who knows – the course and some consistency may play into their hands for a strong top 10 showing, although it’s unlikely we will see them flanking the man in red in the final podium like they did back in 2013 alongside Chris Horner…

Frenchman Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) will also be here for stage wins, while South Africa’s Meintjes (Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert Materiaux) will probably do his usual yo-yoing around the fringe of the top 10 while pushing for a maiden Grand Tour stage win.

Australia’s Haig (Bahrain Victorious) merits more than one star but he hasn’t ridden since crashing out of the Tour early on, and he has DNF’ed three of his previous four Grand Tours. Still, the 28-year-old made the third step of the podium last year and, provided he’s not forced to ride for teammate Landa, and provided he keeps out of trouble, he should be in the mix entering the third week.

American climber Kuss will be on red alert to step into the GC picture for Jumbo-Visma should anything happen to leader Roglic. He’s won a stage in the Vuelta before and came eighth last year and so he’s a safe bet for a high finish in Madrid with or without teammate Roglic in the reckoning.

Spanish climber Lopez (Trek-Segafredo) hasn’t been pulling up any trees since his long stint in pink at the Giro but he came 13th in the last Vuelta and the experiences gleaned from making the top 10 of the Giro this year will put the 25-year-old in good stead.

Wildcards: Chris Froome, Bob Jungels, Jan Hirt, Domenico Pozzovivo, Carlos Rodriguez, Thymen Arensman, Alexey Lutsenko, Brandon McNulty, Marc Soler, Julian Alaphilippe

Winner in 2011 and 2017, Froome (Israel-PremierTech) showed signs of returning to form at the Tour and was pushing for a top 25 finish when he was forced out with Covid. The 37-year-old is clearly getting stronger and more confident; it would be a wonderful sight if Froome could continue his upward trajectory in Spain having been written off by so many.

It may be a bit much to brand a double world champion a wildcard but Frenchman Alaphilippe (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) returns to make his first Grand Tour appearance since his nasty fall in Liege-Bastogne-Liege this spring. Everything suggests that teammate Evenepoel is Quick-Step’s man for GC but Alaphilippe will still be keen to make a splash in his first Vuelta appearance in five years.

Twelfth place in the Tour – plus a stage win in the Alps – gave us a glimpse of the Bob Jungels of old. A lot will depend on the performance of Ag2R-Citroen teammate O’Connor but the 29-year-old Luxembourger’s upward trajectory could well continue this summer.

Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert Materiaux pair Hirt and Pozzovivo performed admirably in the Giro, both riders finishing in the top 10 and belying their advanced years. With the Czech off to Soudal-QuickStep and the Italian’s career path unsure next year, both riders will want to go out with a bang.

Dutchman Arensman (Team DSM) has been quietly impressive this year and a breakthrough GC ride could well be on the cards for the 22-year-old off the back of his 18th place in the Giro. Lutsenko (Astana-Qazaqstan) won a stage in his last Vuelta appearance in 2017 and ghosted into the top 10 of the previous two Tours, while UAE Team Emirates duo Soler and McNulty may be able to follow their own ambitions a bit more with teammate Tadej Pogacar sitting this one out.

Finally, look out for Grand Tour debutant Rodriguez (Ineos Grenadiers). The 21-year-old won the Spanish national championships earlier this summer and has topped the youth classification on his previous two stage races. Certainly one for the future, could Rodriguez possibly come of age a little earlier than expected in his home tour?