Here we are on the eve of the Vuelta a Espana, the third and final Grand Tour of what’s been an incredible 2024 season for us.
With the boss (Tadej Pogacar) having dominated the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France, the responsibility now falls on us to go out and secure the clean sweep of Grand Tour general classification winners jerseys.
It’s an incredible opportunity and one I can’t wait to attack. It’s been a long season and this is the last big goal, so I'm excited to go out on a high.
The Vuelta itself is an incredibly tough race, arguably the toughest of the entire season. There’s significantly more climbing in this race than either the Tour or the Giro, but that should hopefully suit me and the guys we’ve got here.
With around a dozen mountain stages, we have plenty of opportunities to utilise the weapons in our team to put the pressure on our rivals and go hunting for victories. I haven't pinpointed any specific stages, but the Queen stage in Sierra Nevada is near a lot of the roads I train on in the winter, so it would be special to do something there.
The team we’ve got here is super strong. Having Joao [Almeida] back alongside me is awesome after such strong rides together at the Tour de France and Tour de Suisse. Thinking back to the Tour de Suisse, Joao and I were both on a really high level and could work together to drop rivals on the climbs. I don't think we'll have it quite like that in the Vuelta but we make a good partnership so hopefully we will produce a positive result.
We’ve also got Isaac Del Toro on the start line for his first Grand Tour which is very exciting for all of us. He’s shown an incredible level already this season, so I can’t wait to see how he performs. Seeing his excitement here reminds me of my first Grand Tour race and the emotion around it.
I can just remember trying to soak in the experience and getting through it. I think you need to ride a few of them before you get the hang of it. Unless you're someone like Tadej!
Coming into the Vuelta after such a successful Tour de France has been the ideal preparation. The race was full of drama and big moments, but I think our guys showed incredible togetherness and skill to secure the yellow jersey for Tadej.
I know he’s called me his ‘wingman’ in the past, but it’s a relationship that works super well and I love riding with him. I get to focus on my own goals throughout the year, and then when the Tour rolls around, I slot in as part of a team role which I'm more than happy to do. Securing victories on the biggest stage makes it all worth it.
We went into the Tour with supreme confidence, but we still had to go out there and perform every single day, emptying ourselves to push towards our goal. We knew that we could win it but obviously the level of competition was also super high, more than any other race on the calendar, so we had to be at our absolute best.
Also, having someone like Tadej as leader takes a lot of pressure off because he's so calm and so strong in the race, so it's just a pleasure to ride with him.
Thinking back to the start of the season, it was a bit of a whirlwind for me. We started so well at the Tour of Oman and then began our home race (the UAE Tour) in such strong condition. However, a really nasty crash on Stage 3 meant I couldn’t compete any further and that put the brakes on my season.
The crash itself was really scary, with a massive impact to my head. I'd say the helmet definitely saved me there. It was disappointing because I was in such good form but the right thing to do was to stop. I had a few weeks off the bike then and started to build up for the other main goals for the year.
Lastly, to the people of the UAE, thank you for your continued support this season. We feel it in every single race that we compete in, and can’t wait to show our thanks in October when we come to visit. I can’t wait to celebrate our team’s success with you all.
