{"id":175112,"date":"2019-08-23T13:09:58","date_gmt":"2019-08-23T13:09:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=175112"},"modified":"2019-08-23T13:09:58","modified_gmt":"2019-08-23T13:09:58","slug":"whos-going-to-win-la-vuelta-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2019\/08\/23\/whos-going-to-win-la-vuelta-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Who\u2019s Going to Win La Vuelta 2019?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some big riders are missing from this year\u2019s La Vuelta, which invites the prospect for an unusually compelling list of favourites to win the maillot rojo.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d is our favourite<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Rogli\u010d skipped Le Tour so arrives at La Vuelta with fresh legs. Earlier this year, he was pleased with one very significant podium finish \u2013 the rising star of Jumbo-Visma finished third in the Giro. For a couple of years, I\u2019ve been singing his praises but more to the point Rogli\u010d seems to be the product of a team playing the long game \u2013 a la Sir David Brailsford.<\/p>\n<\/lite-youtube>\n

Rogli\u010d has a strong team surrounding him, including the veteran Robert Gesink who placed 4th in Le Tour de France in 2010 and 6th just four years ago.\u00a0 Steven Kruijswijk is also racing and is the kind of alternative race leader who wouldn\u2019t look out of place in Team Ineos \u2013 but maybe not as fresh as Rogli\u010d given his stellar performance to finish 3rd, and on the podium, in 2019\u2019s Tour de France.<\/p>\n

Tadej Poga\u010dar will win something<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The UAE-Team Emirates rider will celebrate his 21st birthday less than a week after La Vuelta finishes. Poga\u010dar may be young but the rapidly-growing list of jerseys proves that the Slovenian rider should be taken very seriously. Poga\u010dar likes to win races.<\/p>\n<\/lite-youtube>\n

This year alone, he\u2019s won the young rider classification for the Basque, Slovenian, Algarve and Californian tours. Oh, and he came first overall in those last two tours. He\u2019s won his National Road Championships for his second successive year. If you want to place an outside bet, bet on Poga\u010dar.<\/p>\n

Miguel \u00c1ngel L\u00f3pez is a dark horse<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Richard Carapaz would have been my second favourite to win, given his accomplishments and relaxed build-up to La Vuelta, and it\u2019s disappointing he\u2019s out with such short notice. This puts one less big-hitter in front of Miguel \u00c1ngel L\u00f3pez who sounds confident about improving on last year\u2019s podium position.<\/p>\n<\/lite-youtube>\n

Team Astana will be happy to have sorted out the question mark over Fuglsang\u2019s contract \u2013 the Danish rider will stay until 2021. Miguel \u00c1ngel L\u00f3pez will be able to ride knowing he\u2019s got the full support of a super-domestique capable of winning the Tour of Andalucia, Criterium Dauphine, and Liege-Bastogne-Liege.<\/p>\n

Quintana and Valverde\u2019s swan song?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The terrible twins are a menacing presence in any grand tour and together, they\u2019re capable of upsetting the apple cart. Movistar regularly promise to be Team Ineos\u2019 slayers and Quintana showed a little flash of what may be in store when he obliterated the field in stage 18 of Le Tour this year.<\/p>\n<\/lite-youtube>\n

Valverde has come first overall in his national Road Race as well as Route d\u2019Occitanie, so he may well be saving his fireworks for one last hurrah \u2013 by helping Movistar push Quintana to a podium finish.\u00a0 This makes Quintana a reasonable proposition with the bookies but, honestly, Quintana somehow makes any race compelling just by being there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some big riders are missing from this year\u2019s La Vuelta, which invites the prospect for an unusually compelling list of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":175117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[329],"tags":[1886,2228,494,1221,3415],"global-categories":[],"class_list":["post-175112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-road-cycling","tag-alejandro-valverde","tag-miguel-angel-lopez","tag-nairo-quintana","tag-primoz-roglic","tag-tadej-pogacar"],"yoast_head":"\nWho\u2019s Going to Win La Vuelta 2019? - \u0160koda We Love Cycling<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Some big riders are missing from this year\u2019s La Vuelta, which invites the prospect for an unusually compelling list of favourites to win the maillot rojo.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2019\/08\/23\/whos-going-to-win-la-vuelta-2019\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Who\u2019s Going to Win La Vuelta 2019?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Some big riders are missing from this year\u2019s La Vuelta, which invites the prospect for an unusually compelling list of favourites to win the maillot rojo.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2019\/08\/23\/whos-going-to-win-la-vuelta-2019\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"\u0160koda We Love Cycling\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-08-23T13:09:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2019\/08\/La-Vuelta-CVR-profimedia-0466791521.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Christopher Ashley\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2019\/08\/23\/whos-going-to-win-la-vuelta-2019\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2019\/08\/23\/whos-going-to-win-la-vuelta-2019\/\",\"name\":\"Who\u2019s Going to Win La Vuelta 2019? 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