2025 Vuelta a España route woos Tadej Pogačar with ascents of Angliru, Bola del Mundo and third-week ITT

The 2025 Vuelta a España route looks tailor-made for a possible participation of Tadej Pogačar with 10 summit finishes, an ascent of the mythical Angliru and a long, late individual time trial, all components that could attract the UAE Team Emirates champion.

Revealed on Thursday evening in Madrid’s IFEMA trade and congress centre, the 2025 Vuelta a España also kicks off for the first time in Italy and – almost equally as unusual – features a team time trial midway through the first week.

Yet more historic elements feature in the 2025 route, like stage 18’s individual time trial in Valladolid, a city steeped in Vuelta time trial history and with victories against the clock by champions of the calibre of Tony Rominger, Bernard Hinault and Raymond Poulidor. And the inclusion of another hugely emblematic summit finish, the Bola del Mundo, just 24 hours before the finish in Madrid, could also help Pogačar opt for the Vuelta a España over a return to the Giro d’Italia next season.

Striking a markedly international note for its 80th edition, the Vuelta visits a record-equalling four countries in 2025, getting underway in Turin, Italy on August 23, before going to France, Andorra and, of course, Spain. The Vuelta has not visited so many countries since 2009, when the race began in Assen, Holland, then briefly visited Germany on stage 3 and Belgium on stage 4 before returning to home soil.

However, a first major summit finish at Pal in Andorra on stage 6, an even tougher Pyrenean stage to Cerler the following day, and another well-known Vuelta summit finish at Valdezcaray on stage 9 could well prove much more significant long term. Then the second week kicks off with a bang, too, with a return to Larra-Belagua in the Pyrenees, the scene of Remco Evenepoel’s revenge victory in the 2023 Vuelta after his defeat on the Tourmalet just 24 hours earlier.

First introduced in 1999, ever since then the 12.5 kilometre, narrow, poorly-surfaced and agonisingly steep ascent has produced some epic GC battles. For Pogačar, winning on the 10th ascent of the Vuelta’s best-known and most daunting climb – and where his idol Alberto Contador brought down the curtain on his career with a stunning solo win in 2017 – would surely represent yet another major high point in his already glittering palmares.

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