Vuelta 2022 route and stages: What’s in store for Primoz Roglic, Remco Evenepoel and rivals in Spain?

Two years after La Vuelta was supposed to start in Utrecht, the race finally gets its Dutch ‘gran salida’ after Covid forced the organisers into some eleventh-hour changes in 2020. After the Giro’s start in Budapest and the Tour in Copenhagen, Utrecht completes the Grand Tour grand slam of foreign starts on a Friday for 2022 with each of cycling’s major three-week stage races having an additional rest day to compensate for the journey back to home soil.

The 77th edition of La Vuelta begins with a team time trial and two road stages in the Netherlands. The first major summit finish comes on the Pico Jano in Stage 6 ahead of back-to-back summit showdowns in Asturias on the second weekend.

Week two of the race gets going with a 30.9km individual race of truth on the Costa Blanca before the race edges across southern Spain and then towards the centre of the country ahead of the finish in Madrid. Ad In total there are seven summit finishes including Les Praeres (where Simon Yates secured his overall win in 2018), La Pandera, Penas Blancas, the Alto del Piornal and the Alto Hoya de la Mora in Sierra Nevada – the highest peak of the race at 2,512m.

Vuelta a España'We are delighted' — Roglic passed fit to race at Vuelta just 10 days after returning to trainingA DAY AGO With six potential bunch sprints on the cards as well as several days ideally suited for the breakaway specialists, it’s a race that caters for all sorts of riders. It’s also one that a fully-fit triple champion Primoz Roglic will love – provided he’s over the knock he received during the Tour de France.

Before a run-through of each stage, here is a brief summary of what’s in store over the next three and a bit weeks in the Netherlands and in Spain. Stage 1: Fri