Well, what should I say. This race is really really hard to judge for me as it's the grand tour I have least followed since...2013 Vuelta probably, I don't really know (and btw I'm aware this vuelta ending up pretty good really fits the narrative). It's sad in a way, but I was extremely busy this summer and because the gc seemed to be decided very very early on I didn't really bother continue watching when I had other stuff to do, so all the stages that were good on their own but didn't have a massive gc impact, or the stages nobody expected to have an impact, I missed.
People might have noticed that I moaned a lot over the field of this race and I stand with my opinion that this is the weakest gc field a gt has seen in a long time (2015 Vuelta was may be comparable in terms of top end performances but I think that one at least had more depth). I did take out the fun for me a bit as I could never imagine anyone pulling off the one big move that could make Roglic fall off his throne and that despite me still not being sure whether Roglic was actually that good. I understand that to many other the lack of good competition doesn't matter if the racing delivers but for me it simply does.
The other negative was of course the lack of drama for the actual win. The race was fairly close in the first week but with the exception of possibly MAL there was nobody I could see becoming a threat to Roglic. After the first week and especially the TT that feeling almost became certainty. People have compared it with Roglic looking dominant in the giro this year too, but here you just didn't have the same sort of juggernauts sitting a few minutes behind him and the insane mountain stages of the giro left. I've made the point before and I'll repeat it, Lopez, the only guy who seemed to be Roglic's biggest danger was in the exact same position in the giro just that there he was seen as an absolutely minor threat due to everyone else who was in that race. (you can see this whole point is strongly interfering with my previous one about the weak field)
Roglic's advantage only seemed to grow larger and larger as all his rivals were inconsistant as hell, the big danger Lopez was so dangerous he ended up in fifth and in the end I just want to say that as good as this race has been, it was really missing the drama for the win.
Before I get to the good things, I wanted to make the comparison to the giro 2015, as many have claimed this is the best gt since that race and as those races had some big similarities. First of all, I disagree, I think at least the 2018 giro has been clearly better. But aside from that the similarities are indeed striking. Not a great field, not a huge battle for the win, but constantly good stages. Imo the big differences are, firstly the depth of the giro 2015 field was pretty low indeed, but the top end performances were way better there. Contador was still a top 3, maybe 4, gt contender, Landa that giro was insane, Aru was probably better than anyone except Roglic in this race and let's not forget there was a super strong Richie Porte in that race for two weeks. Secondly, while we didn't have a super tense battle for pink in 2015, it's easily forgotten just how super tight that race was until the TT on stage 14 and then on stage 16, had things gone just a bit differently, Contador easily could have lost the giro there. Only for the last 5 stages we pretty much knew who was gonna win. So yeah, this race was giro 2015 esque, but I think still quite a bit behind it.
Anyway, now to the good parts. For the 2nd time since 2015 the approach of not putting huge mountain stages in the final week has worked brilliantly for the Vuelta and I just hope they will now use this concept more frequently. The two mountain stages had action from something like 50 k out (which is unusual for any gt, but even more so for the Vuelta) plus there was serious gc action on the two flat stages as well. I don't actually think any of the earlier mountain stages were great, but there wasn't really a bad one either. The climbs were never really controlled, even the big guns often attacked pretty early (Lopez in Andorra comes to mind) and so while none of those stages will be race of the season, there was good racing throughout. In addition I liked some of the medium mountain stages a lot. Of course there was the stage quintana won early in the race (which I missed, who would have guessed), I really liked Gilbert's first win, plus some of the other breakaway battles. I guess what I actually like most about those was the lack of bunch sprints. That last part actually surprised me as there were quite a few stages that could have ended in sprints but didn't. Therefore I also think this still felt very Vuelta esque despite the route not being that much of a classic vuelta route. Only really one murito mtf, a number of stages that offered chances to attack from far out, the mentioned flat stages. But hey, if it works out like that, I'm all in for it. Especially the "attack from far out" part is something I've missed so much in previous editions. When you had the feeling someone was strong enough to maybe pull off a big turn around, while the leader might have weaknesses but there just wasn't any point to realistically try. It was frustrating.
So all in all, how would I rate it? Still no idea, 8 maybe? Despite my negative start to this post I really liked this Vuelta and really wish I had seen more of it. Only thing I'm sure of is I'm still mad Nibali wasn't in this, but at the tour instead.