How to Watch the 2022 Vuelta a España

The season’s final grand tour is always one of the hardest, most mountainous, and therefore most exciting races of the year.

As the season’s final grand tour, the Vuelta a España (“Tour of Spain”) is always a bit of a “last-chance saloon” as riders often use the race to try and redeem themselves for miscues earlier in the year, build form for late-season races (like late-September’s World Championships), or in some cases, earn a new contract. Stuck in the shadow of May’s Tour of Italy and July’s Tour de France, we love how the Vuelta’s organizers always go to great lengths to create a spectacular course—usually by including lots and lots of climbs.

Beginning this Friday in the Netherlands, this year’s race covers 3,280.5km (2,033.9mi) over 21 stages, including a team time trial, an individual time trial, and eight stages with summit or uphill finishes. Here’s everything you need to know:

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Dates

Friday, August 19th to Sunday, September 11th.

The Route

The 2020 Tour of Spain was supposed to start with three stages in the Netherlands, but those plans were postponed due to COVID-19. So now the race is finally making the trip north for only the fourth foreign start in the Vuelta’s history. The racing begins on Friday with a 23.3km team time trial in downtown Utrecht (Stage 1) that will determine the first rider to pull on the red jersey as the leader of the Vuelta’s General Classification. Stages 2 and 3 look perfect for the Vuelta’s field sprinters.

After taking a day off to get everyone to Spain, the race resumes in the Basque Country with two stages (Stages 4 and 5) featuring the short, punchy climbs the region’s known for. Stage 6 heads west into Cantabria for a stage that finishes atop the Pico Jano, the race’s first summit finish. Stage 7 should give breakaway specialists a chance to score a stage win before back-to-back summit finishes (Stages 8 and 9) in Asturias to close the Vuelta’s first week.

The second week brings the race south to the province of Alicante, where a 31.1km individual time trial (Stage 10) open’s the week. If Slovenia’s Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma), the Vuelta’s three-time defending champion, is to win his fourth consecutive red jersey, he’ll need to take as much time as possible from his rivals here.

Sandwiched between two stages that should favor sprinters (Stages 11 and 13), Stage 12 ends atop the Peñas Blancas, a summit that’s been featured in previous Tours of Spain, but this time with a new twist: an additional four kilometers have been added to the accent for grand total of 20km of climbing.

The race stays in Andalucia to end the second week, with two high altitude summit finishes: Stage 14 ends atop La Pandera, a long, steep climb on rough roads; and Stage 15 climbs into the Sierra Nevada mountains for a finish on the 2,510m Hoya de la Mora, the highest summit in the 2022 Vuelta. By the final rest day, there will likely be only two or three riders with realistic chances of winning the race overall.

The third week begins with two hard stages (Stages 17 and 18) in Extremadura, where the heat should be extreme. Stage 17 looks ideal for a breakaway, with a jagged profile and an uphill finish at the Monasterio de Tentudía. Stage 18 could bring more changes to the GC, with three climbs in the second half of the stage including a summit finish atop the Category 1 Alto de Piornal. Stage 19 will be exciting with a short stage (130km) consisting of two laps of a circuit going over the Category 2 Puerto de Piélago.

With so many climbers set to compete this year, the race will likely be decided on Stage 20, an ascent-filled slugfest in the Guadarrama Mountains outside of Madrid. With five categorized climbs and a finish line just past the summit of the Navacerrada (which launched Italy’s Fabio Aru to victory on the penultimate day of the Vuelta in 2015), anything could happen. Stage 21 brings the race to close in Madrid, with a flat stage that will give the Vuelta’s remaining sprinters one last chance to shine.

How to Watch the 2022 Vuelta a España

Streaming is the best way to watch the 2022 Tour of Spain, and if you did what we suggested and subscribed to NBC’s Peacock Premium before the Tour ($4.99/month) you get the Vuelta and other races covered by NBC and its partners. For ad-free coverage you’ll need a subscription to Peacock Premium Plus, which runs $9.99 a month. Eligible Comcast Xfinity X1 and Flex customers and Cox Contour customers may already access Peacock Premium for free.

The Peacock app is available on Roku, Apple devices, Android and AndroidTV devices, Google platforms, Chromecast, Xbox devices, Playstation 4 and 4 Pro, VIZIO SmartCast TVs, and LG Smart TVs. You can also watch online via the Peacock website.

If you’re in Canada, FloBikes ($12.99/month) is the best way to watch the Tour of Spain, with all 21 stages available live and on-demand on FloBikes.com, the FloSports IOS app, and the FloSports app for Amazon FireTV, Roku, and Apple TV.

What Happened Last Year

After abandoning the 2021 Tour de France due to injuries sustained in a crash during the Tour’s opening week, Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) bounced back to become the third rider to win the Tour of Spain three years in a row. Along the way the Slovenian won four stages, defeating Spain’s Enric Mas (Movistar) by 4:42, the largest winning margin since 1997. Australia’s Jack Haig (Bahrain-Victorious) finished third at 7:40.

Riders to Watch

Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) - For the second year running, Roglič was forced to abandon the Tour de France due to injuries he sustained in a crash during the first week. So he’s again hoping the Spanish grand tour will help him salvage his season. To do it, he’ll need to leverage his superior time trialing and the strength of his team, which also features American Sepp Kuss, who finished eighth overall last year.

Jai Hindley (BORA-hansgrohe) - Winner of May’s Giro d’Italia, Australia’s Hindley looks to become the first rider since Great Britain’s Chris Froome to win two grand tours in a season. (Froome, who’s also racing this year’s Vuelta, won the Tour de France and the Tour of Spain in 2017.) A strong climber who’s improved (a bit) as a time trialist, the Australian rode a cunning Giro, staying in contention throughout the three week race only to launch his winning move on the penultimate day.

Richard Carapaz (INEOS Grenadiers) - Defeated by Hindley at the Giro, Ecuador’s Carapaz narrowly lost the Vuelta to Roglič in 2020. That said, he remains one of the best and most consistent grand tour riders of the past five years, and he leads a talented but young INEOS Grenadiers squad, with four riders making their grand tour debuts with the British super-team.

Remco Evenepoel (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) - Belgium’s newest “chosen one,” Evenepoel went right from racing as a junior to the pros, making him the darling of his country’s passionate fans. His grand tour debut didn’t go so well, though: he failed to live up to his billing as an overall contender at last year’s Tour of Italy, abandoning the race after Stage 17. But he’s taken some big wins since and has a relaxed “take it one day at a time approach” this year. A win should be out of his reach, but a top-5 finish would be a sign that Belgium has possibly found its next grand tour contender.

Other riders to watch include Great Britain’s Simon Yates (Team BikeExchange-Jayco), who won the Vuelta in 2018, and Spain’s Mikel Landa (Bahrain-Victorious), who finished third at this year’s Giro.

Portugal’s João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) is another podium hopeful, along with Spain’s Enric Mas (Movistar), who would love to improve upon his two runner-up finishes. The Vuelta will also be the final grand tour for two legends: Italy’s Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) and Spain’s Alejandro Valverde (Movistar), both former overall champions who would love to win one more stage before calling it a career.

There are also several North Americans tackling the Spanish grand Tour: Americans Lawson Craddock (Team BikeExchange-Jayco), Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates), Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) and Canadian Michael Woods (Israel-Premier Tech).