The 79th edition of the Vuelta a España will begin this Saturday in Lisbon, Portugal, with 156 participants and 22 teams. Seven Colombians will take part in the last major race of 2024.
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This edition of the Vuelta a España will have a new regulation: The race will introduce a disciplinary system based on yellow cards, similar to that used in football, which will try to control bad habits in the field.
This is how the yellow card system will work in the Vuelta
The technical director of the Vuelta, Kiko García, explained how the issue of the cards will work. “It is a system to prevent bad habits. That means that a bad action by a cyclist, a motorcycle rider, a sports director… can result in a yellow card, which can only be issued by a commissioner. As long as it is an action that has to do with safety,” he said, quoted by the Efe agency.
Tour of Spain
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The system of warnings will be on trial for this year’s edition, but the UCI plans to extend it to the entire peloton in 2025. It has already been applied in other races this year.
In 2025, a member of the peloton who receives two yellow cards in the same race will be disqualified and suspended for seven days. Anyone who receives three warnings in a month will be suspended for 14 days, and anyone who receives six yellow cards in a one-year period will be suspended for one month.
Other security measures for the 2024 Vuelta
The race will also adopt some of the measures already in place at the Tour de France, which aim to ensure the safety of cyclists, especially those where there may be a mass arrival and where there are opportunities for sprinters.
Normally, in the last three kilometres, if a rider has an incident, he is given the same time as the peloton. Now, this zone will be wider in some sections.
The winds, a key factor in the Vuelta.
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“We have four stages in which the safety zone for the sprint will be slightly extended. This will be in stages 2 and 3 in Portugal and 5 in Seville, which will have it 4 kilometres from the finish, and 17 in Santander, where it will be extended to 5 kilometres from the finish,” said Garcia.
“These are measures proposed by SAFER, an organisation made up of all the cycling families. It is a test period for these measures, just as it began in the San Sebastian Classic and the Tour of Poland, which we are going to try to adapt as best as possible. There will surely be some mistakes, but it is a good time to start testing,” he concluded.
The Vuelta a España will host the presentation of the cyclists on Thursday and the first stage will take place on Saturday, a 12-kilometre time trial between Lisbon and Oreiras. There will be seven mountain-top finishes and the race will end on 8 September with a 22-kilometre time trial in Madrid.
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