The southern sun
Andalusia is the southernmost territory of the continental Spain and therefore, one of the southernmost lands in Europe, where the sun is almost always shinning. Vuelta a Andalucía is usually held in February, but for the 2021 edition its situation in the calendar has been modified for health prevention reasons. Thus, this year, in the middle of May, the Sun will be even more present during the stages and will fully justify the second name of the race: La ruta del sol —The route of the sun—.
Route
As usual, five stages make up the race route. The first three of them have mid-mountain profiles and will decide the general classification, especially the third, which includes up to six climbs scoring for the KOM jersey.
Stage 4 seems the most suitable for a sprint finish, while the fifth and last stage is the one that accumulates the least positive slope, although it presents a final trap that can truncate the ambitions of sprinters: the Alto de la Geoda is a 3.4 km at 5.4% climb, and is crested at 5 km from home.
Favorites
With the change of dates, the quality of the startlist has been affected, as has already happened with other ProSeries races such as the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana or the Volta ao Algarve em Bicicleta.
Miguel Ángel López (1200) will be the leader of the Movistar Team and seems the strongest man for the mountain stages, although this 2021 he has only participated in the Tour de Romandie without any notable results.
Other GC candidates are the New Zealander Dion Smith (400), the Russian Ilnur Zakarin (400), the Irishman Edward Dunbar (400), the South African Daryl Impey (600) or the Spanish Ángel Madrazo (400), among others.
For the fast arrivals, Mark Cavendish (600) looks like the man to beat after his great performance at the Presidential Cycling Tour of Turkey. Other fast men present are Alexander Kristoff (600), Mads Pedersen (600), André Greipel (400), Hugo Hofstetter (400) or Ion Aberasturi (400), as well as Daryl Impey (600) himself, who can also compete in sprints.
We take this opportunity to remind once more that in these previews we avoid commenting on 200-credit riders, so there may be interesting picks in this price range.