'A big waste of time’: Inside the stage race with only one stage

What do Maxim van Gils, Tadej Pogačar and Chris Froome have in common? They have all won the Ruta del Sol, or Vuelta a Andalucía, the important UCI 2.Pro early season race in the south of Spain.

The former is the odd one out, though, because the 24-year-old Belgian might have won the stage race overall, but he did it by winning just one stage. And that was less than five kilometres long. The five-stage race was decided by a 4.95km time trial, after farmer protests in Spain prevented the other four stages from taking place. To add to the weirdness, the time trial was completed on road bikes, with no TT originally scheduled.

As a result of all this, Van Gils won the 70th Ruta del Sol in a time of eight minutes and 17 seconds. Initially, it was thought he would win 225 UCI points for his short effort, but this has now been reduced to just 20 for winning the stage.

"I immediately rode to the bus after the time trial, then I heard that I had won and had to go to the podium, so it was great, it's still the Ruta del Sol," the GC winner said post-race. "It's a pity that the other stages have been cancelled now, but it is what it is. This was actually comparable to a 10-minute test on training camp, it's a good sign that I could win and it gives me confidence for what comes next."

For Alpecin-Deceuninck directeur sportif Gianni Meersman, it was a matter of "making the best" of the strange race situation, for which the organisers are blameless.

“When you need to tell the riders one hour before the start that they're not going to race tomorrow, it's mentally not easy to prepare yourself for a 5km time trial,” he said. “It's the same for everyone, you have to make the best of it."

“It was pretty eventful, or uneventful really,” Q36.5’s Mark Donovan told Cycling Weekly post-stage three (or should that be post-stage one?). “I knew what I was doing when I woke up this morning, but I didn't realise it was going to be the only thing I did this week, it's slightly strange.

“It felt chaotic, and I think a lot of the guys were a bit frustrated,” he continued. “Because it's the start of the year, it's a bit more frustrating because you had a full preparation for the season. This was the first race for a lot of guys, and you just want to get it done. People did a lot of preparation to be here, and you just want to get it under your belt.”

Spanish farmers have been protesting this week across the country, drawing police resources away from other events, including in Andalusia, where the UCI ProTour race was set to take place. As a result, the prestigious early season race was initially cut to four days, then to three days, and finally to just one.

“It's quite disappointing,” Alpecin-Deceuninck DS Meersman explained. “We feel for the organisers, it is what it is. They could not guarantee the safety of the riders, so there was no race of course. This weekend we'll have two nice training days, and then we'll go back home.

“It'll be a decent training camp in a nice location. It's better than being in Belgium or the Netherlands, where it's eight degrees and raining.”

It’s a similar story for Donovan, who will make the most of the location to get some kilometres in his legs, even if he would have “preferred a few hard days though, really”.

“We will stick around,” the 24-year-old said. “I had a flight booked on Sunday anyway, the team is all here, so we'll have a two-day training camp and then fly home as planned. It's not just the riders that come, it's all the buses and trucks and stuff, everyone has driven all the way down. It's a big waste of time for a lot of guys, which is a shame. You just have to make the best of it.”

Van Gils might have just had the most lucrative eight minutes of his career, but spare a moment for the 102 other riders, and even more staff, who travelled to the south of Spain for little more than a leg stretcher.