Crosswinds and comebacks – 5 storylines to watch at the Vuelta a San Juan

The road season began with the Tour Down Under this week and the action continues in the southern hemisphere with the Vuelta a San Juan, which makes a most welcome return to the international calendar after a two-year hiatus, with world champion Remco Evenepoel back to defend the title he won in 2020.

The ProSeries race is the highest-ranking event in the Americas, and, as ever, a part of its appeal comes from the simple fact that it offers a rare point of confluence between WorldTour professionals and the South American Continental circuit.

This year’s race also doubles as a farewell event on home roads for Max Richeze, the beginning of a reboot at Movistar for his old friend Fernando Gaviria, and the next chapter in the ongoing saga of Miguel Ángel López’s controversial departure from Astana. 

Ahead of the race, Cyclingnews looks at some of the narratives to follow this week in Argentina.

Remco Evenepoel looks for first rainbow jersey win

Remco Evenepoel’s entire career has played out in the glare of the spotlight. His reputation as a footballer persuaded a local television crew to show up to one of his first junior races in April 2017, and his prodigious scorching of earth over the following 18 months meant he was already the centre of attention for the international cycling press when he turned up for his professional debut at the Vuelta a San Juan in January 2019. He would, of course, win the race outright in 2020.

On the eve of his 23rd birthday, Evenepoel returns to Argentina with the rainbow jersey on his back and with the eyes of the world still firmly upon him. Everything and nothing has changed in the four years since. His every comment can create a headline, his every gesture can generate a meme. So it goes.

And yet the status has never really looked like overwhelming him. There have been setbacks, most notably his broken pelvis at Il Lombardia in 2020 and his ill-advised comeback at the following year’s Giro d’Italia, but Evenepoel righted his trajectory almost immediately and kept on rising.

Ordinarily, one wonders if a newly-crowned world champion will buckle under the weight of the title and its pressures. Evenepoel, who has done so much of his growing up in public, is perhaps uniquely qualified to carry the additional burden. He may insist that his first duty in San Juan is to shepherd Fabio Jakobsen in the sprints, but it would be a surprise if Evenepoel didn’t end the week with his first win the rainbow bands.

Egan Bernal’s comeback enters new phase

Twelve months have now passed since the horrendous training crash that left Egan Bernal in intensive care, and for weeks after the incident, it seemed crass even to wonder if he might ever return to competition.

Remarkably, Bernal was back on his bike within weeks and back training with his Ineos teammates by the summer. At one point, there were even murmurs that he might ride the Vuelta a España, though his team – sensibly – moved quickly to put the brakes on the idea. 

His comeback at the Deutschland Tour was already a minor miracle, but as he marks the one-year anniversary of his life-altering crash, it remains to be seen if he can ever return to the level that made him cycling’s most exciting young talent at the turn of the decade.

Bernal has been undertaking typically mammoth training rides in his native Colombia since undergoing further knee surgery in October, and he insisted on Friday that his January form is in line with previous years, but it seems unlikely that he can compete on the same level as Evenepoel at this early juncture.

More than a result, he will hope for signs of progress in Argentina as he builds towards a tilt at the Tour de France in July.

López joins Sevilla on the outside looking in

The teams have been arriving in San Juan all week and on Friday morning, Evenepoel’s Soudal-QuickStep happened upon Colombian outfit Medellín EPM on their respective training rides up to a windswept Punta Negra. "Hola, señor campeón," Medellín’s newest arrival Miguel Ángel López called out to the world champion. Evenepoel, for his part, complimented the sartorial elegance of the Colombian squad’s kit, even if he ultimately agreed that his own rainbow jersey was more distinctive.

Four months ago, López placed fourth overall behind Evenepoel at the Vuelta a España. In 2023, the Vuelta a San Juan is likely to be their only encounter across the entire season. López, previously suspended by Astana Qazaqstan, was dismissed last month due to his links to Dr Marco Maynar, currently at the centre of a drug trafficking inquiry in Spain. With no takers for his services at WorldTour level, López has found a home for 2023 at Continental level with Medellín EPM, where his teammates include the evergreen Óscar Sevilla.

López has already spoken of his spell at Medellín as a parenthesis, seemingly believing that he will eventually put sufficient distance between himself and the inquiry to satisfy a WorldTour team. He might be a long time waiting, as Sevilla could undoubtedly tell him. The Spaniard was cast out of the top level following his implication in Operación Puerto in 2006, just as the late Davide Rebellin never made it back to the WorldTour following his positive test for CERA at the 2008 Olympics.

For López, the Vuelta a San Juan is as grand a stage as he is likely to see in 2023 – or, indeed, for the foreseeable future. One imagines he will be eager to make it count.

Jakoben, Bennett and Sagan lead sprint bonanza

Sometimes it feels like cycling has changed beyond all recognition, but the key tenets of a sprinter’s life remain more or less unchanged. Fast men, by and large, are expected to win early and win often. In a field where intangibles – placement, timing, even confidence – can so often trump raw power or speed, building up a little early momentum is always useful.

Fabio Jakobsen (Soudal-QuickStep), Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe), Peter Sagan (TotalEnergies), Fernando Gaviria (Movistar) and Giacomo Nizzolo (Israel Premier Tech) are among the sprinters on show in Argentina this week, and they should have at least five opportunities across the seven stages.

Jakobsen is at the head of Soudal-QuickStep’s sprint depth chart and he will look to douse any prospect of Tim Merlier getting the nod for the Tour de France by getting off the mark here. Bennett returned to form late in 2022 after an injury-hit campaign and he arrives in Argentina with the core of his lead-out train.

Sagan has endured two years blighted by illness but the noises emanating from the TotalEnergies camp are upbeat after his uninterrupted winter of training. Nizzolo was limited to just one win in 2022 and he will seek better here. Gaviria, so prolific in Argentina over the years, begins a reboot of his career at Movistar and an early win would certainly aid the process.

For all of them, the Vuelta a San Juan is about getting up to speed quickly.

Ganna + crosswinds = echelons

The last time Filippo Ganna lined out at the Vuelta a San Juan, in 2020, he spent the first part of the week deflecting questions as to whether he would focus on the time trial or the team pursuit at that summer’s Tokyo Olympics. By the end of the race, where he placed second overall behind Evenepoel, he even found himself downplaying the idea that he could one day become a Grand Tour contender.

Ganna’s luxury problem is that his immense power has so many possible applications. When the pandemic-delayed Olympics eventually took place in 2021, Ganna ultimately powered Italy to pursuit gold after missing out on a medal in the time trial. He claimed back-to-back world time trial titles in 2020 and 2021, too, while also racking up seven Giro stage wins, including a mountainous solo triumph at Camigliatello Silano. All the while, he regularly serves as a locomotive for Ineos at the head of the bunch.

Last October, after a mixed campaign on the road, Ganna returned to the track and provided a showcase of his ability, surpassing Chris Boardman’s 1996 ‘Superman’ Hour Record and then breaking the individual pursuit world record for good measure. The feat ‘saved’ Ganna’s 2022 season, but above all, it provided fresh impetus for 2023, where Paris-Roubaix is the overriding objective of his spring and a time-trial heavy Giro presents intriguing possibilities.

The lack of a time trial limits Ganna’s GC challenge here, but as well as working for Elia Viviani in the sprints and for Bernal and Martínez on the climbs, he will be running through the scales ahead of a pivotal 2023 season. The combination of Ganna and crosswinds seems destined to add up to echelons somewhere along the way in Argentina this week.