The Vuelta 2023 is now history. Once finished, in AS his director Javier Guillén (Madrid, 1972) recaps everything that happened, both on a sporting and non-sporting level. A race that started in the rain and at night in Barcelona and ended with an exciting result through the streets of Madrid, marked by the dominance of one team: Jumbo, which took the three places on the podium with Sepp Kuss at the front. high.
How do you rate your career?
I don’t think anyone can say they were bored because the competition had an exceptional turnout that responded. All the great personalities are the ones who enlivened the race, occupying the podium of the Vuelta and also the other top places in the general classification. My balance sheet is absolutely satisfactory. A Vuelta is an adventure. There are good things and bad things, but when you weigh everything in the balance, for me the positive wins.
There were expectations based on participation, the route… Do you think they were met?
If we look at the phases in which we were able to establish key points, I think that almost all of them worked very well. Evenepoel has already won in Andorra, Kuss in Javalambre. I think Tourmalet Day lived up to everything we expected from the fans and the stage was exceptional. Larrau was the resurgence of Evenepoel after its collapse and Angliru was the stage with the highest audience share in the last five years. The time trial also went well and La Vuelta clearly arrived in Guadarrama, but from that day on I prefer the classic profile. I think we have to keep insisting.
Outside the sport, especially in the first part of the Vuelta: time trials in Barcelona, neutralized sections, boycott attempts and more. How did you try to resolve all of this?
The solution came on the one hand through explanations and on the other hand through making decisions. In Barcelona the rain started, it suddenly became night, which was not expected and we couldn’t help but explain it. When it comes to neutralization, two situations must be distinguished. Upon arrival in Barcelona, on the second day, an agreement was made at the request of the runners and teams, but the organization considered it necessary. And in Caravaca the decision lies solely with the organization. We always say it: We hope to please everyone, but someone has to make a decision. The coexistence at this Vuelta between the organization, teams and riders was fantastic, even if part of the public didn’t understand it that way. We respect him, but it is also my turn to defend what is ours.
The Jumbo arrived as favorite and dominated the race. Has this superiority blocked the competition?
It’s clear that they dominated from start to finish. What happened was that, if one could speak of a block from the start of the race, we had a team where the runners seemed to be competing with each other. We saw it in Angliru.
They then agreed to maintain their positions.
If you ask me as director of La Vuelta, I would have liked there to be no orders and the fight to continue, but you have to understand. I say it with all my love, but I wish they would have kept fighting because maybe the winner would have been Kiss. We are thrilled with him.
And the Spanish?
It is clear that we need national references and we have them. The positive thing is that after these three superclasses (Kiss, Vingegaard and Roglic) we have Ayuso, Landa and Mas. With Kuss and his language-related affinity for Spanish, we have almost made him our own. Many fans showed their fondness for him.
What do you learn from this issue?
Experience will help us overcome certain situations. We were worried about the problem of electricity in Barcelona, there was also the incident with the planes (during the transfer from Murcia to Valladolid), for which seven teams had to land in Madrid and then continue by bus. These are circumstances that we have to deal with. We treat everything with calmness, which is the best way to face things. We learn every year. I have to say, not to justify myself, but so that people understand why things happen, that La Vuelta is a race that takes risks, and when you take risks, sometimes things don’t go your way wishes. Of course they are controlled risks, but I think we should not let this situation distract us from the other races.
And what is this difference?
Maybe the first day schedule is one of them. Also the discoveries we make, reaching the finish line where the logistics are not very sufficient, certain configurations in departures and arrivals…
Evenepoel arrived as champion but was far from defending his title. Was he still one of the great entertainers of the race?
He is considered a cycling legend. What he did is what we all want, heroics. If you lose 27 minutes on the Tourmalet and win the next day by eight, that’s something very big. The spiritual recovery he experienced is incredible. I think that in this Vuelta we were all with Remco on the stages he won and the stages he almost won. Thank you very much for your delivery.
What awaits us at the Vuelta 2024? (It starts in Lisbon with an individual time trial and the first three stages will lead through Portugal)
We will work with different, varied routes, with new proposals and hopefully the runners, with their commitment, will lead us to an edition that will be decided at the end. The path to discovering unprecedented arrivals continues. We’ll do the same things… but differently. I’ll leave it at that. Sometimes we know that classical music also works very well.