The riders, media and organisation members are gathering in Burgos, the city of the iconic knight El Cid, as they get ready to kick off La Vuelta from the cathedral on Saturday. The 76th edition also implements new regulations, in order to “bring more life and action to the race”, technical director Kiko Garcia explains.
La Vuelta is in Burgos
The riders, the staff members and the fans of La Vuelta 21 are gathering in Burgos, in the autonomous community of Castile and Léon, as they get ready for a three-week battle they hope to make as epic as El Cid’s conquests almost a thousand years ago. The city will be the start of their own Camino de Santiago, ahead of a 3.417km battle leading to Santiago-de-Compostela, where the winner of the 76th edition of La Vuelta will be crowned on September 5th. But for now, everyone’s gearing for the start from the cathedral of Burgos to celebrate its 800th birthday. The headquarters of the race are located in the convention center Fórum Evolución Burgos, only separated from the cathedral by the river Arlanzon the riders will pass by at the end of Saturday’s opening individual time-trial.
“The green jersey will be up for grabs for other types of riders”
La Vuelta regularly implements novelties and this year’s include new regulations with the introduction of new time bonuses (3, 2 and 1’’ to claim in bonus sprints located in 10 stages, in addition to the 10, 6 and 4’’ awarded on the finish line of each stage except the TTs) and a reshuffled system for the points classification. The intermediate sprints will now award 20 points to the first rider (and 17, 15, 13 and 10 points for the following contenders). At the end of stages, a new scale favours flat stages (50 points for the winner), compared to mid-mountain stages (30 points), high-altitude stages and individual time-trials (20 points in both cases). “In the last editions, the rider battling for the overall victory often dominated the points classification”, explains technical director of La Vuelta Kiko Garcia. “We want the fast men to have more opportunities to score more points for the green jersey to be up for grabs for other types of riders.” As for the bonus sprint, he hopes “they will bring more life and action to the race. You can see the ones we’ve put on top of climbs are never on the final climb, always the penultimate, to motivate riders to go on the move.”
The mobile Covid-19 lab returns to La Vuelta 21
In 2021, La Vuelta renews its commitment to the fight against the global health crisis. Besides a detailed and thoroughly applied protocol and the basic individual responsibility of the components of the race’s different bubbles, the organisation is making use of a mobile Covid-19 lab that will travel along with the race during the next three weeks. Provided by Spanish company Bioser, it’s a 12-metre truck (40m2) welcoming 18 health professionals, able to certify the health status of up to 1,000 people per day.
10th edition of La Vuelta Junior Cofidis
More than 1,500 boys and girls between 8 and 12 years old will participate from this Sunday and until September 5th, in La Vuelta Junior Cofidis, which this year also reaches its tenth edition. This children's competition will visit ten locations that will also be the end of La Vuelta stages, namely: Burgos (stage 2, 8/15); Molina de Aragón (stage 4, 8/17); Albacete (stage 5, 8/18); La Manga del Mar Menor (stage 8, 8/21); Rincón de la Victoria (stage 10, 8/24); Córdoba (stage 12, 8/26); Villanueva de la Serena (stage 13, 8/27); Santa Cruz de Bezana (stage 16, 8/31); Monforte de Lemos (stage 19, 3/9) and Santiago de Compostela (stage 21, 5/9). The participants will cover the last kilometre of the stage of La Vuelta, thus living one of the dreams of any professional cyclist, and the winners will climb the podium with their idols. In these ten years since 2011, the event has reached more than 225,000 boys and girls from all over Spain.
El Pozo increases its commitment
El Pozo Alimentación, a firm linked to La Vuelta since 2016, prolongs and increases its commitment to cycling and the event, as it becomes a main partner and sponsors the Most combative rider award, a prize that transmits values such as effort, self-improvement and sportsmanship, with which the company fully identifies. The fans will choose the heroes of the day casting their vote on the official website. In addition, as in previous years, El Pozo Alimentación, through the BienStar brand, will once again be a main sponsor of the women's event CERATIZIT Challenge by La Vuelta 21, which will consist of four stages in this edition.
Europcar provides again safe and clean vehicles
The car rental firm Europcar renews one more year, making it 13, as the official supplier of La Vuelta, providing vehicles that are as safe as clean, which is a total guarantee for the members of the race caravan in these times of Covid-19. For this new edition of the Spanish Grand Tour, the Parisian company has increased the fleet it supplies to 150 vehicles, adding cars and vans, many of them ECO (hybrids, above all). These cars will make possible the transfer of part of the organisation, media and sponsors that move daily with the race.
