Favorites stage 9 Vuelta a España 2024

The day before the first rest day, the riders in the Vuelta a España face a challenging mountain stage, with the Alto de Hazallanas as the central feature. IDLProCycling.com is happy to tell you more about it.

Course stage 9 Vuelta a España 2024

Favorites stage 9 Vuelta a España 2024 | Who will be the fastest man on or after the Alto de Hazallanas?

178 kilometers is the distance the peloton must cover on Sunday, August 25. The riders will start in Motril — a name not exactly familiar to many — and finish in Granada, a somewhat better-known location.

Seven years ago, the Vuelta peloton also started a stage in Motril. Back then, the riders headed towards the coast, but that won't be the case this year. This edition has chosen a route heading towards the Sierra Nevada, a well-known training area for many professionals.

It's not until about 75 kilometers into the race that the real action starts, although there are plenty of (uncategorized) altitude meters to cover before that. Even before reaching the first official climb, the men already pass by the finish location of Granada. However, the peloton continues, heading into the mountains. Around this time, the breakaway of the day may already have formed. The Alto de El Purche is an 8.9-kilometer climb with an average gradient of 7.5 percent (a first-category climb). The first three kilometers have a constant gradient between 9 and 11 percent, which could already create some time gaps.

After a descent towards Pinos Genil, the riders reach a reservoir. From there, the road steeply ascends: the Alto de Hazallanas, another first-category climb, which is 7.1 kilometers long with an average gradient of 9.5 percent. There's a relatively easy section halfway up, so you can guess how steep and tough the rest of the climb is... The steepest section even reaches 20 percent!

Once they reach the top of the Hazallanas climb, the riders descend again towards Pinos Genil, where they will tackle the same climb once more. After the second time over the summit, the climbing is done. A nearly 23-kilometer descent — not technical at all — leads to the city center of Granada, where we finish on a flat section.

Climbs
96.9 km: Puerto de el Purche (8.9 km at 7.6%)
124.2 km: Alto de Hazallanas (7.1 km at 9.5%)
155.5 km: Alto de Hazallanas (7.1 km at 9.5%)

Times
Start: 12:25 PM locally / 6:25 AM EST
Finish: around 5:15 PM locally / 11:15 AM EST

Weather stage 9 Vuelta a España 2024

Sunday will also be hot — what else could we expect in Spain? — with temperatures around 35 degrees Celsius. In Granada, we could even see up to 38 degrees Celsius! The wind, which might be welcome on such a hot day, will blowing from the southwest, but not too strongly.

On Saturday, we once again saw how incredibly strong Primoz Roglic is in this race. The Slovenian from Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe dropped almost everyone on the final climb and then defeated Enric Mas from Movistar in a sprint-à-deux. Both riders have shown multiple times that they are in great form, so we can list them as the top favorites for this ninth stage. Roglic, as the top favorite for the overall victory, still has some time to make up on Ben O'Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), who lost time on Saturday.

On Saturday, Mikel Landa from Soudal Quick-Step finished third. The Spaniard is still in good shape after his excellent performance in the Tour de France. Sunday's climbs might suit him even better, although the Basque rider might not be a fan of the descent. Can he make the difference earlier on, in his characteristic style?

Joao Almeida (UAE-Team Emirates), on the other hand, cracked on Saturday. The Portuguese rider lost a lot of time (five minutes!), so we probably shouldn't expect much from him on Sunday. This actually applies to the entire UAE team, as they have not been in the picture. Only Isaac del Toro, a huge talent, might still provide an interesting twist, as Adam Yates has also seen better days (though Saturday wasn't too bad).

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Vuelta title defender Sepp Kuss also couldn't keep up with the very best on Saturday (and also earlier on in the race). Still, Sunday's stage seems to suit him better, and as a pure climber, we should keep an eye on him. And what about Lotto-Dstny's Lennert Van Eetvelt, who made an impressive comeback in stage 8 after being held up by a crash?

Finally, in terms of the general classification riders — we think this stage is one for the big boys — we look at Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek), Carlos Rodriguez (INEOS Grenadiers), Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious), Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) and George Bennett (Israel-Premier Tech).

If the stage victory would go to a breakaway rider, we mainly think of a few GC riders who have already lost some time for various reasons. Matthew Riccitello (Israel-Premier Tech), for example, but also Eddie Dunbar (Jayco-AlUla), Max Poole (dsm-firmenich PostNL) and Lorenzo Fortunato (Astana Qazaqstan Team). Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) would normally be suitable for a stage like this, but he doesn't seem to be in the best form in this race and, to make matters worse, he crashed on Saturday.