by The lie of the land is fairly completely different because the Tour Colombia returns to the calendar on Tuesday after a four-year absence. The fervour for the game on this nook of the world is as fervent as ever – witness the joyous multitudes in Duitama finally weekend’s nationwide championships – however the skies are usually not fairly as serene as they had been within the spring of 2020.
Again then, simply earlier than the coronavirus pandemic took maintain, Colombian biking was on the zenith. Egan Bernal was the reigning Tour de France champion, and Nairo Quintana was starting an obvious renaissance at Arkéa. Miguel Ángel López was the approaching man of the mountains, and WorldTour groups had been scrambling to establish and recruit rising Colombian expertise. Certainly, twelve months beforehand, earlier than hanging a take care of Ineos, Dave Brailsford had travelled to the nation to research the prospect of securing a sponsor to interchange Sky.
By final winter, the temper music had modified significantly, and sombre newspaper headlines spoke gravely of the top of Colombian biking’s years of loads. WorldTour squads’ rising desire for recruiting instantly from the junior ranks in Europe and North America, allied to the demise of Manzana Postobón, had sophisticated the pathway for younger Colombian expertise, whereas some established stars had been enduring travails of their very own.
Bernal’s future was unsure as he fought his method again from career-threatening harm. Quintana getting ready to retirement after testing optimistic for Tramadol on the 2022 Tour de France and failing to safe a contract. López was banished from the WorldTour resulting from his implication in Operation Ilex. Different members of the golden technology, in the meantime, had been inching in the direction of the top of their careers.
The absence of the Tour Colombia from the calendar solely exacerbated the sense of drift. The race was cancelled in 2021 as a result of pandemic, and shortfalls in funding prevented the Colombian Biking Federation from resurrecting it within the years that adopted. Its return in 2024 was confirmed too late to persuade the majority of the WorldTour squads to vary their early-season programmes, however the organisation will hope that this yr’s occasion will no less than present a foothold for future editions.
Most significantly, they’ve secured the presence of probably the most bankable stars of Colombian biking. Nairo Quintana begins his second act at Movistar on the Tour Colombia, whereas Rigoberto Urán and Esteban Chaves line out in an EF Schooling-EasyPost squad that additionally consists of Olympic champion Richard Carapaz of Ecuador. Though Ineos Grenadiers opted towards including the Tour Colombia to their programme, they’ve allowed Bernal and teammate Brandon Rivera line out for the Colombian nationwide workforce.
Quintana and Bernal will inevitably dominate consideration over the six-day race, and never solely as a result of the route traverses their respective residence departments of Boyacá and Cundinamarca. For the nation’s two best riders of the twenty first century, this version of the Tour Colombia marks one thing of a reboot, an opportunity to put down a marker earlier than transferring on to the marketing campaign forward in Europe.
When Quintana known as a press convention in Bogotá a yr in the past, the idea was that he had reached the top of the road. Regardless that he defiantly dismissed the concept of retirement that morning, his path again to the WorldTour appeared impassable. Already persona non grata after his Tramadol positives, his attraction was hardly going to be heightened by a yr on the sidelines.
Movistar’s difficulties in 2023, nonetheless, supplied a route again in. Though Quintana endured a attempting finish to his time with the Holy Household in 2019, documented in excruciating element by Netflix, Movistar struggled final season to offset the lack of Alejandro Valverde from each a sporting and industrial standpoint. Supervisor Eusebio Unzué and his backers reckoned that rehiring Quintana at a decreased price was price a punt. “We could not simply sit again and do nothing,” he stated final month.
After delivering a serviceable if unspectacular exhibiting on the nationwide championships final weekend, Quintana takes in his first actual take a look at on the Tour Colombia as he builds in the direction of the Giro d’Italia. The summit end on the Alto del Vino on the penultimate day ought to supply pointers as to what he would possibly be capable to obtain in his comeback yr.
Bernal, in the meantime, arrives on the Tour Colombia buoyed by his bronze medal on the nationwide championships street race, his first podium end of any description since he claimed general victory on the 2021 Giro d’Italia. His profession was interrupted and his life modified by the horrific crash he suffered in coaching forward of the 2022 season, and his very return to the skilled peloton later that yr was already a monumental achievement.
Though Bernal’s comeback suffered some false begins final yr, he did handle to complete each the Tour and the Vuelta a España, a feat he hoped would function a basis for enchancment in 2024. Significantly difficult Vingegaard, Pogacar et al in July nonetheless appears impossible at this level, however Bernal’s spirited show in Duitama final week was a reminder of his expertise and resolve.
This week’s race, which visits his native Zipaquirá on stage 4, affords an opportunity to take one other stride ahead. Bernal, like Colombian biking at giant, isn’t the place he was in February 2020, however the outlook is extra promising than it was a yr in the past. It’s one thing to construct on.
Cavendish and the riders to look at
Following the demise of the Vuelta a San Juan, the Tour Colombia is probably the most prestigious stage race within the Americas, although the sector is gentle on WorldTour expertise in comparison with the earlier three editions in 2018, 2019 and 2020. Even so, the star energy on the Tour Colombia is just not restricted to Quintana and Bernal. As one would count on with Telefónica’s industrial pursuits within the area, Movistar have despatched a robust line-up that features Ivan Sosa and Fernando Gaviria, who has the helpful behavior of successful early and infrequently in 2.1 races in South America right now of yr.
Gaviria ought to be challenged within the sprints by Mark Cavendish, who arrived in Colombia over two weeks in the past for a block of altitude coaching in Rionegro within the firm of some key males from his Astana-Qazaqstan prepare, in addition to Alexey Lutsenko The thought, coach Vasilis Anastopoulos defined, was to extend Cavendish’s cardio capability for the season forward, and he’s scheduled to return to altitude at Sierra Nevada forward of the Tour.
Sprinting at greater than 2,500m above sea degree gained’t favour Cavendish, after all, however the presence of Michael Mørkøv and Cees Bol is a transparent signal that the Manxman isn’t lining out merely to make up the numbers. On the very least, it’s an opportunity to reacquaint himself with Mørkøv’s professional lead-out after a yr aside.
EF Schooling-EasyPost are the third WorldTour workforce in motion, and the occasion notionally serves as Urán’s final aggressive outing on Colombian roads, although he has since expressed some misgivings about bringing an finish to his profession. The workforce’s GC problem, in the meantime, appears prone to be carried by Carapaz. The Ecuadorian’s 2023 marketing campaign was blighted by in poor health fortune, most notably his early Tour de France abandon, however he completed the season on an upbeat be aware and commenced the brand new marketing campaign in comparable vogue, cruising to a nationwide time trial title.
Solely two ProTeams – Bingoal WB and Corratec Vini Fantini – have made the journey from Europe, with the remainder of the peloton composed of nationwide squads and Continental outfits. The Colombian nationwide workforce was initially anticipated to incorporate Daniel Martínez and Sergio Higuita, however Bora-Hansgrohe opted towards releasing them for obligation, leaving Bernal because the outright chief.
The continued suspension of Miguel Ángel López, in the meantime, sees 47-year-old Oscar Sevilla lead Crew Medellín, and the Spaniard is certainly one of various acquainted names on the beginning listing. Jonathan Caicedo, launched by EF on the finish of 2023, is available for Gianni Savio’s Petrolike squad, and the Ecuadorian warmed up for this occasion with general victory on the Vuelta al Táchira in Venezuela.
Sergio Henao, beforehand of Sky, UAE and Qhubeka, hasn’t fully exited the stage since leaving the WorldTour in 2021, and he strains out for a Nu Colombia squad that additionally consists of Rodrigo Contreras, as soon as of QuickStep and Astana. In the meantime, newly topped Colombian champion Alejandro Osorio, fired by Bahrain Victorious in 2022 for “contract breaches” leads the road for GW Erco Shimano.
The route
Whereas the longstanding Vuelta a Colombia has usually adopted the remit of a nationwide tour by masking as a lot of the nation as its timeframe permits, the brand new Tour Colombia has restricted itself to a division or two at a time. In 2018, the maiden version of what was then Colombia Paz y Oro targeted on the (comparatively) low-lying Valle del Cauca, whereas the race switched to Antioquia a yr later.
The 2024 route roughly mirrors that of three years in the past, with the race starting in Boyacá earlier than passing into neighbouring Cundinamarca, remaining nicely in extra of two,000m above sea degree at some stage in the occasion. At this altitude and at this early level within the yr, only a week after the nationwide championships, native riders will likely be to the fore.
Within the three earlier editions of the race in spite of everything, solely two foreigners – Julian Alaphilippe and Bob Jungels – have managed to snag stage victories, whereas the ultimate podium has been the protect of Colombian and Ecuadorian riders.
The opening stage between Paipa to Duitama manages to keep away from the climbing within the space and thus lends itself to the sprinters, however the GC males ought to already be to the fore on stage 2, which tackles the uphill finale to Santa Rosa de Viterbo the place Higuita beat Bernal in 2020.
There’s extra rugged terrain on stage 3 to Tunja, although the flat run-in ought to current Gavira et al with one other probability. Stage 4 brings the race into Cundinamarca for a end in Bernal’s hometown of Zipaquirá earlier than the pivotal leg to the Alto del Vino on the penultimate day. The ascent to the end of stage 5 is a few 30km in size, climbing to an altitude of two,854m. That sort of altitude alone made the Alto Colorado a redoubtable problem on the lamented Vuelta a San Juan, however that is an altogether extra arduous take a look at.
The ultimate stage into Bogotá, in the meantime, may hardly be classed as a procession, with the peloton crossing the three,000m-high Alto de Patios forward of the ultimate drop into the capital and the end line outdoors town’s nationwide park.
