La Vuelta 19 will be the 10th edition of La Roja: a jersey that, little by little, has earned a place in international cycling. The red (La Roja), that designates the leader of the general classification of La Vuelta, is a reference in today’s cycling, as are the maillot jaune in the Tour de France and the maglia rosa in the Giro d’Italia. Mark Cavendish was the first to wear La Roja. He was also the first British rider in the red jersey; a year before Chris Froome, who holds the record for leading La Vuelta for the longest time since 2010… at the moment.

La Vuelta’s very first red jersey was awarded at night, at the end of a 13 km time-trial through the streets of Seville. The team HTC-Columbia won with a time of 14’06”. The first rider to cross the finish-line was Mark Cavendish, who mathematically obtained the leadership in the individual general classification. “It is an honour for me to be the first to wear La Roja”, declared the Isle of Man sprinter “but this jersey belongs to the entire team. I am just 10% of the victory”.
On the 28th of August 2010, on a hot Andalusian summer’s night, the cycling community was probably still unaware that La Vuelta was about to write a new page in its history. With a red jersey designed by Custo Dalmao that mimicked the skin of a cheetah (“the fastest animal on earth”) Mark Cavendish went to bed, the fastest cyclist on earth on the roads at that moment.
Red was the new colour chosen to designate the race leader. It succeeded the orange one of the first two editions – won by Belgian rider Gustaaf Deloor (in 1935 and 1936) – the white one of 1941, and the orange one again in 1942, a first foray into the red in 1945, a white one with a red stripe (from 1946 to 1950), a yellow one that made an appearance in 1955 and lasted until 1998 (except for the orange one in 1977 – the year that Maertens won 13 stage victories as well as the general classification) and, finally, the golden jersey worn by the La Vuelta leader from 1999 to 2009.
A decade ago, Javier Guillén – who took the reins of the race as its General Director in 2009 – decided to link La Vuelta to the “most successful colour in Spanish sports”. It was the golden era of the Spanish national soccer team (the Roja), world champions in 2010 and European champions in 2008 and 2012. Besides, red is, along with yellow, one of the two colours that make up the Spanish flag.

“It is my first stage in my first Vuelta and I’m wearing La Roja. This doesn’t take my focus away from my main goal, though: to win several stages”, explained Mark Cavendish, disappointed at having lost in the sprint in Marbella to the FDJ’s Belorussian, Yauheni Hutarovitch. He did not win while wearing the red jersey, but he did wear green in Burgos and in Salamanca (his second and third stage victories, respectively). We would have to wait until stage 6 of La Vuelta 12 to see a rider raise his arms as he crossed the finish-line, while wearing the red jersey: it was Joaquim ‘Purito’ Rodríguez, in Jaca.
Philippe Gilbert, another important name in contemporary cycling, followed on from Mark Cavendish by wearing La Roja in 2010. It was in Málaga, specifically in the Gibralfaro Viewpoint… a climb to which he was perfectly suited, at that time. He overhauled Serafín Martínez 500 m from the finish-line. “Every time I’ve come to La Vuelta it has been with the objective of winning a stage and preparing for the World Championships”, reminisced the rider who would go on to wear the Valkenburg rainbow jersey in 2012, following two stage victories in Barcelona and La Lastrilla. “It has been an honour to be able to wear La Roja for five days”. “The leader still wore yellow when I started watching La Vuelta. It coincided with the back to school period and I’d watch the race on TV after school, before training”, said the Belgian rider.
At Xorret de Catí, Gilbert ceded the red jersey to Igor Antón – who became the first “martyr” of that new tunic. He had to abandon the race following a fall 6 km from the finish-line in stage 14, with a finale in Peña Cabarga. He was having one of the best moments in his career. Vincenzo Nibali took the leadership from him, becoming – despite a second stint in the lead by Purito – the first rider to win La Vuelta wearing the red jersey in Madrid. A new chapter of La Vuelta history.

Just days away from the start of this decade’s final edition, there are 35 riders in La Roja’s list of winners:

• Chris Froome, 27 days (20 + 7 stripped from Juan José Cobo)
• Vincenzo Nibali, 20 days
• Alberto Contador and Joaquim ‘Purito’ Rodríguez, 17 days
• Nairo Quintana, 14 days
• Simon Yates, 11 days
• Fabio Aru, 7 days
• Esteban Chaves and Tom Dumoulin, 6 days
• Philippe Gilbert, Igor Antón, Chris Horner and Alejandro Valverde, 5 days
• Sylvain Chavanel, Bradley Wiggins, Darwin Atapuma, Michal Kwiatkowski and Rudy Molard, 4 days.
• Jonathan Castroviejo and Michael Matthews, 3 days
• Mark Cavendish, Rohan Dennis and Jesús Herrada, 2 days
• Jakob Fuglsang, Daniele Bennati, Pablo Lastras, Bauke Mollema, Janez Brajkovic, Nicolas Roche, Dani Moreno, Peter Velits, Peter Kennaugh, Rubén Fernández, David de la Cruz and Yves Lampaert, 1 day.

Among them are 14 nationalities. Spain is at the top of the list, followed by the UK, which has seen five British riders in the lead of the Spanish tour (two of them, eventual overall winners: Chris Froome and Simon Yates). Spain has a total of 53 days wearing the red jersey; the UK 45, Italy 28, Columbia 24, France 8, Netherlands seven, Belgium six, USA and Australia five, Poland four; and Denmark, Slovenia, Ireland and Slovakia one.
Up until now, seven riders have made history by wearing the leader jerseys of the three iconic Grand Tours: Vincenzo Nibali, Chris Froome, Alberto Contador, Fabio Aru, Bradley Wiggins, Mark Cavendish and Rohan Dennis.
More information about La Vuelta : www.lavuelta.com
PRESS CONTACT
Laura Cueto
lcueto@unipublic.es
+34 638 95 95 20

Key points:
 The 22 teams and 176 riders participating in La Vuelta 19 were presented to the public on Thursday evening.
 Colombian stars and Jumbo-Visma leaders shared their high ambitions while Spanish riders shared their experience with kids and visited the University Hospital of Torrevieja.

COLOMBIAN PARTY AT LA VUELTA?
Nairo Quintana (Movistar Team) has a new dream: “It would be the greatest pride to win La Vuelta and have a Latin American party”. The Colombian climber, winner of La Vuelta 16, is one of the main talents able to lift Latin American riders to a third Grand Tour win this season, after Richard Carapaz at the Giro d’Italia (the Ecuadorian had to withdraw from La Vuelta on Thursday with contusions to his right shoulder) and Egan Bernal at the Tour de France. “We’re coming with a great team and we’ll enjoy it with Alejandro (Valverde)”, Quintana added on Thursday during the top riders’ press conference. “He is the leader and I’ll try to stay in contention too”, Valverde said while other Colombian talents were laying out their ambitions. “My
goal is the same as it is in every race, I want to do a bit better than the previous time and keep growing”, Miguel Ángel López (Astana) said a year after his first podium finish in La Vuelta. “We don’t have individual goals with Mitchelton-Scott, but a collective one: to fight for stage wins”, Esteban Chaves said.

KRUIJSWIJK AND ROGLIC BOTH “WANT TO WIN”
Jumbo-Visma has brought to the Costa Blanca their leaders from the Giro, Primoz Roglic (3rd overall), and the Tour de France, Steven Kruijswjik (3rd), with high ambitions. “To finish on the podium of a Grand Tour is nice but I’ve already done it at the Giro so I want to win here”, Roglic said. “I’ll try everything to win it.” Kruijswijk, who finished 4th at La Vuelta 18 and proved he could do well in both the French and Spanish Grand Tours, also comes with high ambitions, as he told the media on Thursday: “I’m here to help the team win La Vuelta but I’d like to do it myself of course. Primoz is also one of the favorites and we have to see halfway through La Vuelta. We start with the ambition to be up there and we can play some games, being so strong as a team.”

CUTE QUESTIONS AND SINCERE LAUGHS WITH THE KIDS PRESS CONFERENCE
The kids participating in the 1st stage of La Vuelta Junior Cofidis, this Saturday in Torrevieja, made the most of their own press conference with four riders participating in La Vuelta 19. Ángel Madrazo (Burgos BH), Jesús Herrada (Cofidis-Solutions Crédits), Sergio Pardilla (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) and Sergio Samitier (Euskadi-Murias) shared some good laughs and insights into their life as professional cyclists. What do they eat? When did they take the training wheels off of their bikes? And what about studies? “It always has to come first!”, Madrazo urged them. Herrada told them about his childhood idol, Marco Pantani, “although I’m a very different kind of cyclist”,
while Pardilla recalled memories of his first bike – “It was way too big”. Samitier shared a painful but funny anecdote about how he suffered a collarbone fracture: “I raised my hands in a downhill to show off in front of my friends and I crashed into a hearse that was parked there.”

LA VUELTA AND CAJA RURAL VISIT KIDS IN THE HOSPITAL OF TORREVIEJA
Young kids admitted in the University Hospital of Torrevieja were visited by riders from the Spanish Continental Pro team Caja Rural-Seguros RGA on Thursday morning with Ricardo Goñi, the team’s vice president, and Manuel Ruiz, representative from the Group Caja Rural and Seguros RGA. They enjoyed this opportunity to present the Solidarity Initiative the company organises every year during La Vuelta: on September 5th, the 8.000 employees of the Group Caja Rural will drop their suit and wear the green jersey sported by the team and 10% of the insurance policies sold on that day will help finance the projects of the Red Cross. “I want to thank Caja Rural-Seguros RGA
and their partners for helping us show cycling is more than a sport”, the general manager of La Vuelta, Javier Guillén said after participating in the hospital visit.
Laura Cueto
prensa@unipublic.es
+34 638 95 95 20