The Vuelta a España organisers have confirmed that the race will start in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, next year.
News of the departure location was announced by Unipublic at the start of the final stage of the 2023 race, starting in the Hipódromo de la Zarzuela and finishing in Madrid.
The Vuelta had only once before started in Lisbon, in 1997, when two stages took place in Portugal, with a third taking the race back across the border to Huelva in southerly Andalucia. It was the first-ever start for the Vuelta outside Spain.
Next year’s start in Lisbon is the second foreign start for the Vuelta in three years after it began in Utrecht in the Netherlands in 2022 and the fifth in its history.
Stage 1, to Estoril west of the capital, was won by Lars Michaelsen of Denmark after the sprinters suffered on the hilly terrain behind GC contenders Laurent Jalabert and Claudio Chiapucci, and the two following stages concluded with bunch sprints, won by Germany’s Marcel Wust.
The Vuelta was supposed to have two third-week stages in northern Portugal in 2020, but international border restrictions caused by the pandemic forced the organiser to substitute them for stages inside Spain.
The 2024 Vuelta will start on August 17th next year, and like in 1997, will feature three stages on Portuguese soil, organisers said.
For the first time since 2021, the opening stage is set to be an individual time trial, in this case running between Lisbon and the coastal town of Oeiras.
Stage 2 heads north, running between Cascais and Ourem and stage 3 then starts in Lousa and finishes in Castello Branco, after which the Vuelta will return to Spain.
It was also revealed that the 2024 Vuelta will end, as is traditional, in the Spanish capital Madrid. However, next year’s race reverts to its usual calendar dates and ends over a week earlier than in 2023, on Sunday, September 8th.
