The Toxic Avengers Return: Volta a Portugal 2023

Page 2 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Feb 20, 2010
33,064
15,269
28,180
Linarez strongest in the sprint once more, this time Burgos get up to 2nd with Miguel Ángel Fernández ahead of Babor.

More interest in the long term will be to do with the small time gaps at the line, not sure if they will stand given the small amounts of time involved. Figueiredo in with the group at +1", gaining a couple of seconds on most of the GC rivals, which could be significant if upheld, but I suspect it won't.

Linarez gets the camisola amarela on bonus seconds though, which spares Glassdrive a day or two on the front at least I guess. Or doesn't, you never know, this is the Volta.
 
Sep 26, 2020
25,328
27,821
23,180
Linarez strongest in the sprint once more, this time Burgos get up to 2nd with Miguel Ángel Fernández ahead of Babor.

More interest in the long term will be to do with the small time gaps at the line, not sure if they will stand given the small amounts of time involved. Figueiredo in with the group at +1", gaining a couple of seconds on most of the GC rivals, which could be significant if upheld, but I suspect it won't.

Linarez gets the camisola amarela on bonus seconds though, which spares Glassdrive a day or two on the front at least I guess. Or doesn't, you never know, this is the Volta.

Looks like the gaps have been neutralised, apart from Soto managing to lose 10 seconds.
 
  • Wow
Reactions: Sandisfan
Mar 20, 2022
13,210
17,981
22,180
So it is time for soul-crushingly bad Pimba music, time to see what ancient relics of a decade-old Vuelta breakaway you can dredge up to see performing like Pantani, time to see jerseys so ugly that Italian ProContinental teams wouldn't wear them, time to throw everything you ever thought logical and sensible and throw it in a trash can and then set that trash can on fire, it's time for 45º heat and stupid W/kg. Time to decamp to Portugal for a week and a half of carnage!

84_volta_a_portugal.jpeg


Of course, some of the appeal of the Volta has been somewhat dampened by the fact that we are seeing something more of August in July these days; you don't have to go to the Volta to see 90s wattages being put out anymore... but on the flip side, the Volta did give us its very own recreation of the Festina affair last year. It is following a few recent parcours trends - time trial mileage is reducing, and mountaintop finishes are increasing (and also the Unipuerto quota is increasing significantly too) - but the Volta is still in its own way a strange window in to cycling's past, of a provincial péloton who go hell for leather on home roads and ride at levels they never replicate elsewhere; there is a separate universe where everything we think is true is exposed as a lie, the whole corporatisation of cycling never happened, there is no World Tour, no ProTeams, just whoever the hell is brave enough to turn up and get ground into mincemeat by the locals. And the Volta a Portugal? It's the Tour de France of this universe.

For the first time in a while the race is covering all of the country including looping down to the south of the country despite the prologue being in Viseu; this results in a pretty heavily backloaded route which is going to mean most of the big action comes in week two. If you've ever watched Portuguese cycling though, you'll know that it bears some strong resemblance to Spanish cycling in that even the stages designated as flat come with some challenges, usually in the form of hilltop towns and awkward repechos that mean that a pure flat sprinter is disadvantaged compared to a more all-round type. Plus of course with the Portuguese péloton doing its thing, there could well be all manner of odd tactical moves going on especially if teams wish to preserve energy for the second week, given the massively OP nature of the Glassdrive-Q8 team, who have taken over as dominators since the downfall of W52 last season - in much the same fashion as Palmeiras Resort dominating from the ashes of LA-MSS and Liberty Seguros 15 years ago.

Stage 1 to Ourém will be a bumpy affair - no major climbs but there's very little real flat - but then it's transitional stuff, flat stages and rolling stages, until after the weekend. Then. however, the GC days come thick and fast. Stage 5 is the traditional Alto da Torre MTF; this year they're coming from the Covilha side via Penhas da Saúde and Piornos, but it's a pretty much completely Unipuerto stage.

etapa_5.jpg


The following day is a medium mountain stage which promises to be more interesting than those in the first week at least, using the multiple risers and climbs around Guarda that used to serve as the run-in after Torre when they briefly moved away from a summit finish there.

etapa_6.jpg


After that it's the Serra do Larouco/Montalegre stage which has become popular in the last decade or so; it's not the most interesting climb and gaps tend to be smallish but it serves its purpose. The stage isn't Unipuerto literally, but I'd say it's functionally Unipuerto in that it's unlikely we'll see action of much significance beforehand - even if this is the Volta.

etapa_7.jpg


Stage 8 is a transitional stage to Fafe which includes a relatively late - but low gradient - climb. Doesn't seem that they'll be using too much of the sterrato around here, if any, sadly. Then stage 9 is the queen stage, to the icon that is Senhora da Graça, with two preceding cat.1 climbs, one gradual and one steep. This should be where differences are made.

grafico-9etapa_paredes__mondim.png


Finally, there is the ITT which follows recent habits by having a bit of a climb in it, although this is the low-gradient cobbled grinder up to the Santuário de Santa Luzia in Viana do Castelo, which being as it is low gradient and on cobbles means it is kind of less likely to direct things too much toward the climbers in and of itself. However, at only 18,2km you'd say this is still a race which very much favours the climber.

Which of course means that 76kg powerhouse "Melcior" Mauri Moreira is likely to take another win, of course. The Uruguayan Wout van Aert will surely arrive in Viseu as the favourite to take another Volta, being quite the dominator on the local scene, well liked within his team and a killer time triallist as well as a climber on a level seldom seen from riders his size... at least ones that aren't called "Wout van Aert". Probably the biggest threat to him will be from his own team, if the dithering of other teams allows somebody else to get up the road, leaving Moreira to play second fiddle behind in the same manner as we have seen from W52 when Rui Vinhas surprisingly won the race a few years ago and pre-race favourite Gustavo César Veloso was forced to clip his own wings in order to protect that lead, much to his open disgust. There are strong candidates for it too, with Frederico Figueiredo one of the best riders out there without a Volta win in the domestic bunch, having been on the podium twice and won the GPM last year; former RusVelo man Artëm Nych (finishing 2nd at the Trofeu Joaquim Agostinho) and James Whelan, the former EF Education man, being other candidates.

Of course the main opposition is likely to come from other Portuguese teams. There's often a surprise but the likely names are Luís Fernandes, who turned into a GC contender at the spry young age of 34, ready to hit prime Volta years, last year, who will co-lead Boavista with César Fonte; Antônio Carvalho, who was part of Glassdrive's squad last year and finished 3rd overall but has hit out on his own with Feirense to lead in his own right (plus young prospect Afonso Eulálio is in good form at the moment); veteran Spaniard Délio Fernández will lead the Tavira team, now sponsored by AP Hotels; Louletano have a no-longer-as-good-as-he-once-was Vicente García de Mateos and 40+ ex-doper TTer Carlos Oyarzún, but Jesús del Pino is proven in this kind of race and he did finish top 10 last year.

The estrangeiro teams surprisingly do not include the NJSBI Victoria Sports team who I thought were a lock, the mixed Portuguese/Filipino venture which has André Cardoso and José João Mendes on it. This is especially odd as they just did the Spanish mini-season with races like Castilla y León, Circuito de Getxo and the Prueba Villafranca Ordizia. Not sure if maybe the money ran out, or they have bigger fish to fry on the Asia Tour perhaps.

It does, however, include all of the Spanish ProConti teams, who often use this as a consolation prize to those that don't make the Vuelta or split their team between those racing Burgos and those in Portugal. Short term pickups and stagiares can often be seen here too. Caja Rural send an odds-and-sols lineup, but this includes Yesid Pira who has a lot of talent but has struggled to adapt to Europe, stagiare Jaume Guardeño, and recent short-term pickup Gorka Sorarrain, who only took up cycling in 2020 at age 24, started racing last year and finished top 5 in the Spanish nationals in June riding for BAI-Sicasal after being told he was too old for most of the top amateur teams in his local region (the name will give away which region that is) to consider him. The others also have stagiares, although David Delgado at Burgos may be worth keeping an eye on as he's been one of the best in the Spanish amateur scene this season. Euskaltel appear to have sent a pretty full-strength lineup with even a near 40 year old veteran in Luís Ángel Mate who will fit right in. Txomin Juaristi made the top 10 here last season, and Mikel Iturria is another veteran of true Volta vintage.

As ever, for the non-Iberian non-ProTeam visitor teams, stagehunting is the most likely goal, although they often take at least a couple of stages in that fashion. Interesting to see who does so this year; it's not the strongest lineup but then it seldom is. Some interesting names though - Global 6 have Nicolas Sessler who was once in Movistar's feeder and finished top 20 in a hugely mountainous one day race a few years ago, but has drifted into obscurity since. Team Vorarlberg have some decent names - Colin Stüssi has good GC finishes at Slovénie and Austria so far this season and ex-Burgos man Óscar Cabedo has some decent climbing ability in smaller races too. Plus they also have Moran Vermeulen here to keep up the "brothers of cross-country skiers" quotient seeing as Efapel chose not to select Keegan Swirbul.
There isn't bad Pimba music. The word pimba means bad quality and we still love in Portugal listening to amazing Pimba singers like Quim Barreiros or Augusto Canário.
 
  • Wow
Reactions: Sandisfan
Feb 20, 2010
33,064
15,269
28,180
Joao Matias can get over some climbs and is a decent puncheur, I wouldn't say that he's just a pure sprinter.
He's a sprinter for the Iberian peninsula kind of guy. You know, the ones that aren't pure sprinters but can - I'd say on that continuum that starts with guys like Juan José Lobato and works up through the likes of Carlos Barbero and Edu Prades.
 
Aug 3, 2015
22,742
10,688
28,180
He's a sprinter for the Iberian peninsula kind of guy. You know, the ones that aren't pure sprinters but can - I'd say on that continuum that starts with guys like Juan José Lobato and works up through the likes of Carlos Barbero and Edu Prades.
No mention of the legend Rojas? Disappointing!
 
Apr 10, 2019
12,075
15,988
23,180
He's a sprinter for the Iberian peninsula kind of guy. You know, the ones that aren't pure sprinters but can - I'd say on that continuum that starts with guys like Juan José Lobato and works up through the likes of Carlos Barbero and Edu Prades.
Meanwhile de Mateos is a full blown Volta-style sprinter climber. Can't believe that he's only 34 years old...
 
Apr 10, 2019
12,075
15,988
23,180
I don't expect him to actually contest sprints anymore, much less hilltop finishes. I'm sure if the Vuelta a Madrid had had a HTF at Cuelgamuros he would have gone for it, though.
Honestly, a Vuelta route designed by Rojas is a pet project for the race design thread. Potential start in Nürenberg with a Kehrsteinhaus Mtf on stage 3, after a München sprint stage that finishes ahead of the Bürgerbräukeller....
 
Feb 20, 2010
33,064
15,269
28,180
Honestly, a Vuelta route designed by Rojas is a pet project for the race design thread. Potential start in Nürenberg with a Kehrsteinhaus Mtf on stage 3, after a München sprint stage that finishes ahead of the Bürgerbräukeller....
Gotta include Melilla then, it had the last remaining statue I believe, still up on public display until 2021.
 
Feb 20, 2010
33,064
15,269
28,180
Big crash in the bunch. Damn this race feels like we're just waiting, usually the first Sunday is a big MTF, it really feels like the race hasn't even got going yet.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Sandisfan
Apr 10, 2019
12,075
15,988
23,180
Big crash in the bunch. Damn this race feels like we're just waiting, usually the first Sunday is a big MTF, it really feels like the race hasn't even got going yet.
Yeah, having to wait so long for the first Mtf is meh.
Still hoping that this might be Freddie's year, with everyone looking at Moreira after Figueiredo nukes the Barreiro climb before SdG like he has done during the last 3 years.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Sandisfan
Feb 20, 2010
33,064
15,269
28,180
Yeah, having to wait so long for the first Mtf is meh.
Still hoping that this might be Freddie's year, with everyone looking at Moreira after Figueiredo nukes the Barreiro climb before SdG like he has done during the last 3 years.
I was going to say that he just needs to hang tight regarding 2020, but even if they remove Amaro, César Veloso retired before the W52 hit so he still wouldn't acquire it.
 
Feb 20, 2010
33,064
15,269
28,180
Fourth time lucky for Babor. Somebody on ABTF having a scrap with him, looked like they were about to come to blows. They were speaking in broken English though so not sure what words were exchanged, Babor looked like he was trying to apologise for something and the ABTF guy was having none of it. Must have been earlier in the stage as ABTF weren't even trying to contest the sprint.

João Matias will take the camisola amarela on bonus seconds after coming 3rd.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Sandisfan
Apr 10, 2019
12,075
15,988
23,180
Speaking of Carvalho, if Glassdrive-Q8 are smart (yeah, I know...) they'll try to replicate what they did last year tomorow. Carvalho always seems to have his bad day on Torre, if they don't try to gain some time on him tomorrow he could become a problem further down the line.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Sandisfan