Vuelta a España 2022

In a strange start to Stage 3 of La Vuelta 2022, the riders lit candles in the Great Church in Breda in tribute to those who have died from Covid-19.

['You need to keep the focus and be careful' - Roglic on staying safe on Vuelta routes](https://www.eurosport.com/cycling/vuelta-a-espana/2022/you-need-to-keep-the-focus-and-be-careful-primoz-roglic-on-staying-safe-on-la-vuelta-a-espana-routes_vid1732566/video.shtml) ['The points are stupid! Vuelta a España

Sam Bennett made it back-to-back stage wins at this year's La Vuelta for Bora Hansgrohe by timing his sprint to perfection in Breda.

Alpecin and Jumbo led the chase and caught the breakaway with 12km to go as the teams prepared for a bunch sprint. Having largely deferred to the sprinter's squad at the front of the bunch up to that point, the likes of Jumbo Visma, Ineos Grenadiers and Bahrain Victorious suddenly moved up, shifting the shape of the peloton from a broad bulge to one which simultaneously sheltered their own and squeezed their rivals towards the gutter. He could not sustain the length of sprint needed to produce a victory, and ended up way down in 9th place, with Sam Bennett's lead-out lieutenant right behind him. Though barely more than a speedbump, at 400m and 3.7% average gradient, rise the Belgian seemed keen to demonstrate that he was still the boss of the breakaway. "Again the job they did in the final. "Jonas [Koch] riding all day, big thank you for the commitment, the boys looking after me in the bunch all day, getting me bottles. The peloton had no complaints as to the make-up of the group, and the seven settled into an easy rhythm formed a strong selection that soon had more than a minute's advantage over the bunch. A more difficult win than the day before, but an even more skilful one, showing he is only gaining confidence. The remaining six riders had only a handful of seconds advantage by this point. 20km further on, on a wide, straight stretch of road, a seemingly innocuous coming together between Israel Premier Tech team-mates Mike Woods and Itamar Einhorn caused both to hit the deck. [pay tribute to those who have passed away from Covid-19](https://www.eurosport.com/cycling/vuelta-a-espana/2022/la-vuelta-2022-unusual-scenes-as-riders-stop-in-church-to-light-candles-ahead-of-stage-3-in-breda_sto9094839/story.shtml), where race leader Mike Teunissen was invited to light a candle. There were no accidents or mistakes from the general classification riders, which ensured they finished safely in the bunch.

Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) took back-to-back stage wins in the Netherlands, holding off Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) and Dan McLay (Arkéa-Samsic) on a ...

All three got safely back to the peloton though, and Carapaz even [had a laugh](https://www.velonews.com/events/vuelta-a-espana/vuelta-a-espana-richard-carapaz-fine-after-crash-with-cone-on-stage-3/?utm_campaign=&utm_content=&utm_medium=organic-social&utm_source=velonews-twitter) about the hiccup when he arrived at the team bus. The peloton left the escape to sweep up the intermediate sprint points before gathering them up a little over 11 kilometres from the line, and it was a textbook finale. So it was quite a hard fight.” “It wasn’t a hard day watts-wise, but there were a lot of accelerations out of the corners all the day, a really nervous day,” Bennett said post-stage. One of the few differences between the first two road stages was that Tim Merlier’s Alpecin-Deceuninck found allies in Trek-Segafredo and Bora-Hansgrohe throughout stage 3. From there on, the stage took on a very familiar shape.

The victory was the tenth Grand Tour stage win of his career and marked the first time that he has taken back-to-back stage victories in a three week race. Just ...

[Edoardo Affini](https://www.velonews.com/tag/edoardo-affini/) was the best-placed of the team in 20th and moved into the race lead by virtue of that stage placing. Thibault Guernalec (Team Arkéa Samsic) drops one place to third. This means that riders from Ineos Grenadiers occupy the next places in the overall standings, some 13 seconds behind the Jumbo-Visma riders. Bryan Coquard (Cofidis), Fabien Lienhard (Groupama-FDJ) and Tim Merlier (Alpecin-Deceuninck) were next home, the latter saying that his chain came off during the sprint. Mike Teunissen, who had succeeded Robert Gesink as race leader on Saturday, worked for the team inside the closing kilometres and didn’t sprint. He, Sam Oomen, Primož Roglič and Sepp Kuss all moved up one place, with Teunissen dropping past them to fifth.

It might have been an incredibly flat stage, but that doesn't mean nothing happened.

The fifth and final of this quintet is Bora-Hansgrohe, the German squad that seems to be getting better and better. Thanks to their powerful performance in Friday's team time trial, with eight riders all finishing on the same time, the Dutch team have had the nice ability to pick and choose which one of their number will be wearing red the next day. However, the trio quickly made it back on and no serious harm appeared to have been done. Things will get serious as soon as the race starts again in the Basque Country on Tuesday, so it will be interesting to see if Van den Berg attempts to defend his lead as things get pretty hilly. The pair don't have too much in common, other than they're not out and out climbers, and they both ride for EF Education-EasyPost. Three days into a Grand Tour, all spent abroad from its normal home country, and a rider from that foreign country is in the polka dot jersey.

Relive all the action from a dramatic Stage 3 of the 2022 Vuelta a España, as a nearly 200-km loop around Breda resulted in another bunch sprint to the ...

Judge was hit by Toronto pitcher Alek Manoah with a runner on second and one out in the fifth, and the Yankees outfielder appeared to take exception to the plunking. Stallings shot 69 Sunday and held at least a share of the lead for much of the afternoon before Cantlay passed him with a birdie at No. He bounced back with a birdie at the next hole and parred his way home to get in at 13 under. And Scott, 42, tied for fifth for the second week in a row to sneak inside the cutoff line, from 45th to 29th. Pereira stripped Rafael Czichos of the ball near the top of the box, and Rodriguez provided the proper finish from in close in the 46th minute for his third goal of the season. A former third-round pick, Jenkins was a productive pass rusher for the Jets in the late 2010s. Baltimore Ravens odds Breakdown The Baltimore Ravens are six-point favorites and are seeing a high number of bets and money coming in on them. The Baltimore Ravens are a juggernaut in the preseason. After a 5-2 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays on Saturday, the Yankees have dropped 25 of their last 26 games. Shutout in three of their last seven games, the Yankees have managed only 14 runs over that stretch, with eight of them coming in a walk-off victory over the Tampa Bay Rays on Wednesday. Dalton and Ian Book have played all of the snaps at quarterback through the Saints' first two preseason games, with the latter playing the entire game on Friday night in a 20-10 loss to the Green Bay Packers. While the New York Yankees have remained atop the AL East since the opening month of the season, the last month and a half has been a disaster for the men wearing pinstripes.

Sam Bennett of Bora-Hansgrohe won stage three of the Vuelta a España, his second consecutive victory in this year's race.

Bennett was overlooked by his team for Tour de France selection this year, and has been linked with a move elsewhere, but this pair of wins – his ninth and 10th at grand tours – may now change the picture. “Today wasn’t hard Vuelta-wise, but there was a lot of accelerations out of corners all day, it was a really nervous day, but again, the job they did in the final … Bennett said: “It was quite a hard fight and the boys, again, what can I say?

Affini takes over the red leader's jersey for Jumbo-Visma in Breda.

In the final 85km, the route turned south, with the wind coming from the right, and there was a marked increase in urgency in the peloton. The next flashpoint came at the intermediate sprint with 23km to go, and De Gendt once again was first to the line. Trek-Segafredo hit the front, and Alpecin then looked to dominate before deciding to slot in behind Jumbo. He has a modern languages degree from Durham University and has been able to put it to some use in what is a multi-lingual sport, with a particular focus on French and Spanish-speaking riders. After that, there was nothing really to fight for, with the gap to the peloton down to just 20 seconds. The Rijzendeweg translated to 'rising road' but it was barely perceptible as the 400 metre stretch was essentially an excuse to hand out mountains classification points. De Gendt got there first, but Van den Berg finished second and did enough to earn himself another day in the polka-dots. It took a few kilometres, but Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal) hit the front and almost gently prised a seven-man group clear. There was an unconventional roll-out as the red, green, white, and polka-dot jerseys all rode ahead and into Breda's Grote Kerk, where they lit candles in honour of those who'd lost their lives to COVID-19. There was also a scare for Ineos as Richard Carapaz suffered a small crash inside the final 20km and had to chase back on with back-up leaders Pavel Sivakov and Tao Geoghegan Hart. In the final, Jonas, even though he was riding all day, came back and gave a big turn. Jonas [Koch] was riding all day - a big thank you for the commitment.

Utrecht, the Dutch city, will host the Big Start of the Vuelta a España. The route continues in northern Spain after three days of flat racing.

In the UK, you can watch the Vuelta a España live on BBC Sports. Still, he would be the overwhelming favorite if he opted to fight for a fourth straight Vuelta championship. The 77th edition of the Vuelta a España grand cycling tour takes place from August 19 to September 11. 2022 Vuelta a España begins on August 19 in Utrecht, Holland, and concludes on September 11 in Madrid, Spain. Primo Rogli assisted Jumbo Visma to reach the top of the prize money standings during La Vuelta last year. The overall winner of the general classification will receive €150,335 in prize money, while the second and third-placed riders will receive €57,000 and €30,000, respectively. It is only the fourth time the grand cycling tour has begun outside of Spain. The third stage will consist of an extended circle around Breda, beginning and ending in the city. If you live outside the UK, there is a significant potential that the Vuelta a España will be geo-blocked in your country due to licensing agreements. With a VPN, you can watch Cycling 2022 Vuelta a España outside UK. If you want to watch the event live on BBC Sports outside the UK, you will need an ExpressVPN subscription. You can watch La Vuelta 2022 live on BBC Sports in the UK.

From the coveted red jersey to best climber, points classification winner and best young rider, we try our hand at predicting three weeks of hard racing that ...

Grand Tour success will surely arrive at some point, but in the meantime he remains a hugely promising young rider and an obvious choice to win the white jersey. All this talk about Primož Roglič, Remco Evenepoel and Richard Carapaz has allowed one man to go under the radar. Thank god, because clearly they need the money. Probably not, but it is being passed around the team, from Gesink to Teunissen and now Edoardo Affini. If they do, you have ten minutes to recover until a high-altitude finish. General classification: João Almeida, Team UAE Emirates Team classification: Ineos Grenadiers Young rider classification: João Almeida, UAE Team Emirates Mountains classification: Richard Carapaz, Ineos Grenadiers When you come to the Vuelta with 12 leaders you’re bound to have a few hanging around the top 15 to win the team classification. They won’t win the overall, but Ineos Grenadiers will snatch the team classification. The Cyclist team have their say on who will win the jerseys at the Vuelta a España

As has become tradition in recent years, La Vuelta once again features a variety of summit finishes, mostly with minimal difficulties before the final climb ...

The key to this climb is the narrow Alto de Hazallanas, which is the first 7,2km of the overall Nevada climb, averaging 9,81% and with a first four kilometre stretch at double digit gradients. After the Hazallanas, the rest of Sierra Nevada is rather shallow and huge gaps on this part do not seem likely between the top GC riders. If still in GC position, this should definitely be the play for INEOS and Bora-Hansgrohe with the Sivakov-Carapaz and Hindley-Kelderman combinations. Nontheless the climbers will try to make an impression here and a high w/kg performance can be expected, so the climbing record of Roberto Heras could well be broken. In 2017, Lopez attacked well before the rolling last kilometre but was only able to gain four seconds on a compact group of Kelderman, Froome, Nibali and Zakarin. Leopold König managed to take the stage to Peñas Blancas in 2013, but gaps between the main GC riders did not eventuate, as the low gradient, low altitude and easy stage before the climb punishes aggressive racing more than defensively sitting in the draft. The ascent to Les Praeres is the only Rampas Inhumanas climb of this year’s Vuelta. In this article we will preview the most important climbs of the La Vuelta a España 2022, with previous performances, expected watts and predictions on which riders each climb is suited towards. The big question mark is Remco Evenepoel, who has struggled on steep gradients in stage racing this year in Tirreno Adriatico and the Basque Country. The 10,2km long and 7,88% steep Collau Fancuaya does not look like a particularly hard climb, but with this being the third hardest ascent of the race, some climbers will be desperate to create gaps. The 12,4km at 6,66% average should not strike fear into any serious contender, but with a 1,5km flat section between 6km and 4,5km to go and the last part of the climb being 4,2km at 6,83%, making serious gaps is a practically impossible task. The only exception to this is the climb to Les Praeres, which is immensely steep, but very short, making big gaps unlikely.

The first proper lumps and bumps await the riders as the peloton race on Spanish roads for the first time in this year's La Vuelta.

where La Vuelta 2022 will be won and lost? [here's our bumper team guide](https://www.eurosport.co.uk/cycling/vuelta-a-espana/2022/la-vuelta-a-espana-2022-team-guide-start-list-star-riders-and-race-goals-for-jumbo-visma-and-their-r_sto9089349/story.shtml). [Here's our rundown of the GC contenders](https://www.eurosport.co.uk/cycling/vuelta-a-espana/2022/primoz-roglic-s-to-lose-the-red-jersey-contenders-hoping-to-surprise-the-slovenian-at-la-vuelta-2022_sto9087941/story.shtml). Vuelta a España [We've got you covered here](https://www.eurosport.co.uk/cycling/vuelta-a-espana/2022/la-vuelta-2022-route-and-stages-schedule-key-dates-and-predictions-in-battle-for-red-jersey_sto9088605/story.shtml). [Why, step right over here](https://www.eurosport.co.uk/cycling/vuelta-a-espana/2022/vuelta-2022-route-and-stages-whats-in-store-for-primoz-roglic-and-his-rivals-in-spain_sto9086812/story.shtml).

Hilltop sprint and bike-mad Basque crowds will see peloton shaken to life after Dutch start.

[Primož Roglič](https://www.velonews.com/tag/jai-hindley), [Julian Alaphilippe](https://www.velonews.com/tag/julian-alaphilippe/), and [Alejandro Valverde](https://www.velonews.com/tag/julian-alaphilippe/) in the frame. The Vuelta sure isn’t one to stick to any predetermined “script.” Roglič won the red jersey on the very first day of racing on similar Basque terrain in both of the two past editions of the race. [Vuelta a España preview: Real fun begins in the Basque stage 4](https://www.velonews.com/events/vuelta-a-espana/vuelta-a-espana-preview-fireworks-assured-even-without-the-big-four/) [Jumbo-Visma hails ‘perfect’ Dutch start at Vuelta](https://www.velonews.com/events/vuelta-a-espana/primoz-roglic-and-jumbo-visma-in-perfect-situation-after-dominant-dutch-start/) Blasting out of the Basque capital Vitoria-Gasteiz, the sub-four-hour ride to Laguardia is by far the toughest of the race so far. “A stage with a likely sprint to the finish line in a reduced peloton,” race route collaborator Fernando Escartīn forecasted. The race hits Spain’s Basque Country for a fourth stage set to shake snoozy sprint days and a cross-Europe flight out of the legs of breakaway riders, puncheurs, and GC contenders.

Date: Tuesday August 23. Start: Vitoria-Gasteiz Finish: Laguardia Distance: 152.5 km. After Monday's travel day from the Netherlands to northern Spain, ...

This stage could well end in a bunch sprint like the last couple – or more likely, a reduced bunch sprint – but that late climb does look like it could be a decent launch pad. In short, it could be an intriguing stage! After Monday’s travel day from the Netherlands to northern Spain, the riders encounter their first real lumps of this year’s race.

Vuelta a España 2022, stage four. Distance: 152.5 kilometres. Start location: Vitoria-Gasteiz Finish location: Laguardia Start time: 13.40 BST Finish time (approx): 16.30 BST. Following a transfer day from the Netherlands to mainland Spain, the race ...

The final 800m kicks up at 10% and favours the puncheurs, who will fight for both the stage win and a few precious seconds on GC. Prediction: We're betting on Movistar's Alejandro Valverde to take victory in stage four. The bonus seconds available in the King of the Mountains competition will also add motivation for those hunting polka dots. A category 3 test of 7.3km in length and with an average gradient of 4.8%, the climb will likely see decisive action, whether from a late breakaway group, GC teams taking control, or even the teams of punchier sprinters looking to make an opportunistic late attack. The capital of the Basque territory, Vitoria, plays host to the stage start. The climb, which comes after just under 60km of racing, is relatively short at 5km, but classified as second category, it makes up for its brevity in steep, punchy ramps, averaging out at 6.9%.