With no hesitation, Richard Carapaz does not shrug off the pressure off his shoulders as he is aware of his favouritism status, and his high aims of winning the Vuelta a Espana.
"I've been on the podium here before, I know what it's like to fight for the win. It will be a battle of 3 weeks, with some "tricky" stages in the beginning, but that is also part of the race," Carapaz said in a press release. "Furthermore, it is a demanding course with a lot of uphill finishes".
"There are a lot of strong riders at the start here, it will probably be a solid and exciting fight. Anyway, I had an excellent preparation and I feel completely ready for this race. This is the race I know best," the Ecuadorian stated. After finishing the Giro d'Italia in second place - loosing the pink jersey on the penultimate day - he will want to take revenge in Spain, and having prepared specifically for the race he comes in as one of the big favourites with perhaps the strongest team.
He'll have the support of 2020 Giro winner Tao Geoghegan Hart, recent Vuelta a Burgos winner and runner-up at Clasica San Sebastian Pavel Sivakov, Spanish champion and super domestique Carlos Rodríguez, and Australian Luke Plapp who ripped the Vuelta a Catalunya earlier this year to help Carapaz into his biggest win of the year. "It's good to get the confidence of the team. Everyone is eager," he said. He'll also have the support of Paris-Roubaix winner Dylan van Baarle, versatile supertalent Ethan Hayter and Grand Tour debutant Ben Turner.
"After my second place in the Giro, I am at the start with great ambition. I am fully aiming for the overall win," Carapaz concluded. The race will start tomorrow in Utrecht with a team time-trial, however soon enough in the first week the race will go into the mountains where the serious differences will start being made.
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- Most of these have nothing to do with rider safety or are completely unachievablevappaxbipmv23-12-2024
- Depends on how fast the Cipressa would be beforehand and in what condition Philipsen would bevappaxbipmv23-12-2024
- Some things sound crazy until they aren't, what if he's actually right? 🤷vappaxbipmv23-12-2024
- Why make a comment to state the obvious? Of course MvdP is much better at CX than Pogacar, does anyone doubt that But that wasn't his pointvappaxbipmv23-12-2024
- If you look at road alone obvi Pogacar is the better rider. But maybe MVDP is the better overall rider since he can win in three plus disciplines?mobk23-12-2024
- Correction on 2021 Olympics. It was mainly the Dutch ladies who didn’t know who was leading the race. Other teams like the Germans and Italians knew that Kiesenhofer was out front.mobk23-12-2024
- A champion turning into a sore loser. Or is he on coke again?
UltimateOpportunist23-12-2024 - If you look at the major races they’ve both been in, van der Poel had the early edge as lately Pogacar has had the advantage. It’s all on procyclingstats.RidesHills23-12-2024
- I wouldn’t assume Tadej can’t win at cross. He did a cross race, not a World Cup, a few years ago and crushed the field. It was a minor race. But he can win anywhere.mij23-12-2024
- I wonder what would happen if Pogacar attacked on the Cipressa instead of the Poggio in San Remo? Would MvdPoel still be able to follow?Ride197423-12-2024