The CERATIZIT Challenge by La Vuelta has been released and, well, if they return to the format of the Madrid Challenge when the Vuelta returns to its tri-star finishing circuit then it's a huge step back, because they've definitely gone all out here, with what can only be described as a swing for the fences. It's up to four days, and it has mountains a-plenty, difficulties and is using major obstacles that, crucially and interestingly, are
not the same ones being used by La Vuelta, as opposed to following the La Course formula of cloning a stage or using part of an existing stage where the fans and the road closures will already be in force. This will make things very interesting.
Now, worth noting is that the entirety of the race will be in Galicia, which does not have much if any women's cycling support at the top level at present, whereas the core areas have been similar to those that sustained the amateur scene in both genders for many years, extending out from the Basque area into Navarra, Burgos province and La Rioja, and extending out from Comunidad Valenciana - therefore it will be very interesting to see whether the kind of interest that has brought forward success for the Navarrese one-day races and the rapid growth of Burgos can reflect in the audience in a relative outpost, however Galicia does have a good men's amateur scene and the race is at the World Tour status which will help.
They've managed to get the support of the La Manzaneda ski station, which hosted an MTF in the men's Vuelta in 2011, won by David Moncoutié. It's a long and grinding climb, but there's a guarantee of time gaps regardless of field as they're going for that quintessentially Spanish difference-maker, the cronoescalada. Lest they make it
too decisive, however (the full climb is around 30km long) they have decided, quite sensibly in my view, to make the cronoescalada only the 7,3km from station section to top station. In a fuller length race they could do the whole thing, but this makes sense in a short stage race imo. The ski station also hosts the départ of stage 1, which has a long downhill to the line and a lot of rolling terrain, but a serious climb in the middle.
With the categorised climbs coming away from the finish and stage 3 being more like an amped down version of stage 1, the decisive gaps are likely to be forged in the ITT, but the race is definitely likely to be favouring a wholly different type of rider than has been the focus to date, as well as giving those climbers that either skipped the Giro (van Vleuten, Niewiadoma) or didn't feel like they did themselves justice at it (Longo Borghini, Uttrup, Harvey) a real chance to redeem themselves for that.
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