The 2015 Vuelta a España was a three-week Grand Tour cycling race. The race was the 70th edition of the Vuelta a España and took place principally in Spain, although two stages took place partly or wholly in Andorra, and was the 22nd race in the 2015 UCI World Tour. The race included 21 stages, beginning in Marbella on 22 August 2015 and finishing in Madrid on 13 September. It was won by Fabio Aru (Astana Pro Team), with Joaquim Rodríguez () second and Rafał Majka () third.
The early leaders of the race were Esteban Chaves () and Tom Dumoulin (), who exchanged the leader's red jersey several times during the first ten days of racing, with both riders winning summit finishes in the first week. Aru took over the race lead following the mountainous Stage 11, which took place entirely within Andorra. He kept his lead for five stages as the race entered the mountains of northern Spain, but lost it to Rodríguez on Stage 16. Dumoulin took the lead back on Stage 17 – the race's only individual time trial – with Aru three seconds behind in second place. Aru attacked throughout the final stages and, on the penultimate day, finally dropped Dumoulin, who fell to sixth place overall. Aru therefore took the first Grand Tour victory of his career.
The points classification was decided during the final stage and was won by Alejandro Valverde (), while Rodriguez won the combination classification. The mountains classification was won by Omar Fraile (). Dumoulin won the combativity award, while Movistar won the team prize.
Teams
The seventeen UCI WorldTeams were automatically invited and obliged to attend the race. The organiser of the Vuelta, Unipublic, was also able to invite five UCI Professional Continental teams – the second tier of professional cycling teams – as wildcards. These were announced on 20 March 2015. , the only Spanish-registered Professional Continental team, was one of those invited, along with two French teams, and . were invited for the second consecutive year after also securing their first ever entry into the Tour de France. The final team to be invited was . One prominent team to miss out on an entry was .
The team presentation took place in Benahavís on the evening before the first stage. The number of riders allowed per squad was nine, therefore the start list contained a total of 198 riders. The riders represented 37 different countries, with the largest numbers coming from France (30), Spain (27) and Italy (20). The average age of riders in the Vuelta was 29.13 years, ranging from the 20-year-old Matej Mohorič () to the 38-year-old Haimar Zubeldia ().
The teams entering the race were:
Pre-race favorites
The top four riders from the 2015 Tour de France all chose to start the Vuelta. These were Chris Froome (), Nairo Quintana and Alejandro Valverde (both ) and Vincenzo Nibali (), all of whom had previously won Grand Tours. The most notable absentee from among the general classification contenders was Alberto Contador (), the winner of the 2014 Vuelta. Oleg Tinkov, the owner of the Tinkoff-Saxo team, had challenged Contador, Froome, Nibali and Quintana to attempt to ride all three Grand Tours in 2015; none of the riders took up the challenge. Froome, Nibali and Quintana all declined to ride the Giro and, as Contador was attempting to win both the Giro d'Italia and the Tour, he did not aim to ride the Vuelta. Valverde and Nibali were the only two previous winners of the race to start the 2015 edition.
Froome, who had been second in the 2011 and 2014 Vueltas, had had a strong season, with victories in the , the Critérium du Dauphiné and the Tour de France. He was attempting to become the first rider since Bernard Hinault in 1978 to win both the Tour and the Vuelta in the same season, though it was expected that he would be tired following his victory in the Tour. The individual time trial was expected to favour Froome, who is strong in the discipline. Before the race, however, Froome was uncertain about his form and his ability to win the race. Quintana's only stage race victory of the season had come in the Tirreno–Adriatico, but he had performed strongly in the Alps in the Tour's final stages, and the mountainous route of the Vuelta was expected to suit him.
Vincenzo Nibali, who had won the Vuelta in 2010, had struggled in the opening stages of the Tour, but had recovered to take a stage victory in the final week. The Astana team also included Fabio Aru and Mikel Landa, second and third respectively at the Giro d'Italia; while this made a strong team, it was unclear which rider would be favoured by the team and given the assistance of his teammates. There was a similar situation at Movistar, as Valverde, who had won the Vuelta in 2009 and had finished on the podium on four other occasions, was also in strong form and was well suited to the course. Also among the general classification contenders were Joaquim Rodríguez (), Rafał Majka () and Tejay van Garderen ().
Other notable riders to take part in the race included several sprinters. One of these was Peter Sagan (), four times the winner of the points classification in the Tour de France and winner of three stages in the 2011 Vuelta, who was preparing for the World Championships road race the following month. Sagan was considered particularly strong on the easier uphill finishes in the first week. John Degenkolb () had won four stages and the points classification in 2014 as well as five stages in 2012. Nacer Bouhanni (), who had crashed out of the Tour, was expected to compete with Degenkolb in the flat sprints.
Route and stages
The first announcement of the route for the 2015 Vuelta a España came in October 2014, when Javier Guillén, the race director, announced that the first stage would take place in Puerto Banús near Marbella on 22 August. It had been decided that the stage would be either an individual time trial or a team time trial. More news came the following month, when Guillén revealed that he had been involved in conversations with Chris Froome and had promised him that the race would include a fairly flat individual time trial of around . He also said that the race would feature "explosive finals and summit finishes". The official route announcement came on 10 January 2015 in Torremolinos, along the coast from the start of the first stage in Puerto Banús.
The first five stages took place in and around Andalusia in southern Spain; the 2014 Vuelta had also started there. The first stage was a team time trial along the coast from Puerto Banús to Marbella. The next four stages were fairly flat, although Stage 2 finished on a moderately difficult climb. The sixth stage started in Córdoba and finished in Sierra de Cazorla in Jaén on another moderately difficult climb. The seventh stage then returned to Andalusia for the first major difficulty of the race: the first-category summit finish at La Alpujarra. The route then continued along the eastern coast of Spain, with a medium-mountain seventh stage and another first-category summit finish at Benitachell on Stage 9. There was one more medium-mountain stage on Stage 10, taking the riders into the Province of Castellón. This was followed by a transfer that took the riders into Andorra for a three-day spell, beginning with the first rest day. The eleventh stage took place entirely in Andorra; though it was only in length, it included six categorised climbs, including a summit finish, and was described by Eusebio Unzué (the manager of the Movistar team) as "the toughest Vuelta stage that he has seen in more than 30 years". Stage 12 took the riders back into Spain for a fairly flat stage, before three consecutive stages with summit finishes. These took place in the mountains of Cantabria and Asturias and were followed by the race's second rest day. The final week of the race included no summit finishes: the first stage was a individual time trial in Burgos and was then followed by three mixed stages that took the riders nearer to the final stage of the race, a sprint stage in Madrid. For the first time, the race organisers also held a women's race on the same day as the final stage, using the same circuit. This race – called La Madrid Challenge by La Vuelta – was won by Shelley Olds.
The 2015 Vuelta included nine summit finishes, none of which had previously been used in the race. Unusually, the principal difficulties of the race came in the first two weeks, including all nine summit finishes. It was therefore expected that the climbers would need to attack early in the race, in order to build up a significant lead ahead of the lengthy time trial on Stage 17. The race organisers also hoped to encourage sprinters to take part by including seven fairly flat stages.
Each road stage (that is, all the stages except the team time trial and the individual time trial) included an intermediate sprint. This was a point where the leading riders in the stage were awarded points in the points classification and time bonuses in the general classification. Many of the stages also included climbs that were categorised by the race organisers according to their difficulty; the leading riders over each of these climbs were awarded points in the mountains classification, with the most difficult climbs earning the most points.
In the days before the beginning of the race, there was controversy over the first stage. On arriving at the start, the teams discovered that the route used a variety of road surfaces, crossed sandy sections and included several ramps. As a result, the race organisers decided to neutralise the stage: the teams therefore competed only for the stage victory and for the team classification, not for the general classification.
+Stage characteristics and winners Stage Date Course Distance Type Winner 1 22 August Puerto Banús to Marbella Team time trial 2 23 August Alhaurín de la Torre to Caminito del Rey Medium-mountain stage 3 24 August Mijas to Málaga Flat stage 4 25 August Estepona to Vejer de la Frontera Hilly stage 5 26 August Rota to Alcalá de Guadaíra Flat stage 6 27 August Córdoba to Sierra de Cazorla Medium-mountain stage 7 28 August Jódar to La Alpujarra Mountain stage 8 29 August Puebla de Don Fadrique to Murcia Flat stage 9 30 August Torrevieja to Cumbre del Sol, Benitachell Medium-mountain stage 10 31 August Valencia to Castellón de la Plana Flat stage 1 SeptemberAndorra la Vella Rest day 11 2 September Andorra la Vella to Cortals d'Encamp Mountain stage 12 3 September Escaldes-Engordany, Andorra to Lleida Flat stage 13 4 September Calatayud to Tarazona Medium-mountain stage 14 5 September Vitoria-Gasteiz to Alto Campoo, Fuente del Chivo Mountain stage 15 6 September Comillas to Sotres, Cabrales Mountain stage 16 7 September Luarca to Ermita del Alba, Quirós Mountain stage 8 September Burgos Rest day 17 9 September Burgos Individual time trial 18 10 September Roa de Duero to Riaza Medium-mountain stage 19 11 September Medina del Campo to Ávila Hilly stage 20 12 September San Lorenzo de El Escorial to Cercedilla Mountain stage 2113 September Alcalá de Henares to Madrid Flat stage Total
Race overview
The team time trial was won by and Peter Velits took the red jersey as the first rider across the line. Since the stage had been neutralised for the general classification, all 198 riders began the second stage on the same time. The stage finished on a moderate climb, where Esteban Chaves () attacked early and took both the stage victory and the lead of the race. A major crash in the final brought down several riders and most riders in the peloton (the main group) were held up, including Fabio Aru and Vincenzo Nibali (). Aru quickly rejoined the peloton; Nibali was forced to chase for a long time. After the stage, a video emerged of Nibali holding on to his team car as it accelerated him back to the peloton. Nibali was therefore fined and excluded from the race.