Chapter 412 - 201: Vuelta a España Roster Revealed, Top GC Betting Odds

He’s so young and has such incredible lung capacity. His recovery must be top-notch, too.

"I think he could handle another Grand Tour!"

After hearing the sports director’s question, Denke’s brow furrowed. He didn’t answer for a good while.

In truth, he had an answer the moment he heard the question.

It was just that the team had spent a fortune poaching Roglič from Visma Team for a top-tier annual salary of 4.5 million euros.

And Roglič had competed in pitifully few races this year. Aside from his victory at the Tour de Dauphine, he’d had basically no other results!

As a businessman, he was undoubtedly uncomfortable with Roglič earning such a high salary with such a low completion rate.

But after careful consideration, Denke’s rational side won out. He spoke in a low voice:

"You know the team’s situation. It’s completely different from before.

I sold all of my shares to the Red Bull Group.

And they’re the ones footing a large part of the bill for Huang Chong’s salary.

We have a responsibility to them, which means we need to deliver consistently excellent results.

Honestly, Primož’s condition is very worrying.

Since his injury hasn’t fully healed, and we can’t be sure he can even secure a victory, let’s have him continue to recover.

We’ll send Huang Chong to the Vuelta a España. It will be a good chance to see if he can seize the opportunity to win his first Grand Tour, especially with Jonas, Tadej, and Remco not competing."

Hearing his boss make a choice after such long deliberation, Aldag had nothing more to add. He simply nodded and said,

"I understand, Ralph. I’ll go arrange the final eight-man roster now.

As for Primož, I’ll discuss it with him privately.

If he makes a full recovery, I’ll have him return for a later race, like the Tour of Lombardy!"

"Good, let’s do that. There are only three Grand Tours a year. We’ve spent so much of our shareholders’ and sponsors’ money—we can’t keep coming in second, right?"

...

After his conversation with the boss, Aldag, the man who served as the glue for team tactics and rider communication, naturally went to speak with Roglič first.

While he had the authority to set the strategy directly, he wasn’t reckless enough to do so when dealing with a superstar of this caliber.

Even under the rules of capitalism, human relationships and etiquette still played a major role.

It was just that they could be much colder and more decisive when making decisions that affected lower-level employees.

Because in the end, the essence of capitalism is all about interests.

It would be incredibly foolish for a sports director like him to rashly offend a superstar cyclist who was still at the top of his game.

But Roglič’s back injury had indeed not healed yet. Even he couldn’t tell if forcing a comeback would be a good or bad thing.

In a way, if Huang Chong hadn’t stepped up during the Tour de France and achieved such a great result—second place—Roglič’s mid-race withdrawal as the Core Commander would have been incredibly damaging to the team.

Of course, injuries are an unavoidable part of being a professional Road Cyclist, and his consecutive withdrawals from the Tour de France in recent years were likely a last resort.

So, when Aldag approached him for a friendly discussion and tactfully conveyed team owner Denke’s wishes, he couldn’t really push back. He could only hope to recover quickly and try his luck in the autumn classics.

With the discussion with Roglič concluded, about three days before the start of the Vuelta a España, the Red Bull Bora Team’s roster for the final Grand Tour of the year was finally posted on their official channels.

Core Commander: Huang Chong

Second-in-Command: Vlasov

Support Riders: Denz, Patrick Gamper, Lipowitz, Adrià, Martínez, and Giovanni Aleotti.

Clearly, Aldag had learned his lesson after bringing four flat-stage support riders to the Tour de France.

This time, for the Vuelta a España, he only brought two flat-stage support riders, Denz and Aleotti. The rest were all climbers.

However, this was also a direct response to the Vuelta a España’s notoriously bizarre and challenging course design.

Aside from the first and last stages, S1 and S21, which were flat ITTs, the only other flat stage during the entire Grand Tour was Stage 5.

The rest were either hilly stages or mountain stages.

The sheer number of climbs was enough to make every flat-stage sprinter on the World Tour balk at the prospect of this Grand Tour before it even began.

Of course, even though the two titans, Vingegaard and Pogačar, weren’t competing in this year’s Vuelta a España, the UAE Team’s roster was still exceptionally strong and star-studded.

The eight-man roster was as follows:

Core Commander: Almeida

Support Riders: Adam Yates, Vine, McNulty, Soler, Sivakov, Del Toro, and Baroncini.

You could almost say their lineup was just the Tour de France squad with their leader, Pogačar, and their flat-stage support rider, Politt, removed. The rest of the personnel were largely unchanged, making it a super-team.

The Visma Team’s roster this year, meanwhile, was certainly weaker than last year’s.

However, last year’s defending Vuelta a España champion, Kuss, would still be riding as their Core Commander.

Van Aert, Van Baarle, and Vettel, among others, would be supporting his bid for the overall title.

After reviewing the rosters of the two powerhouse teams, Huang Chong continued scanning the lists of all participating teams. He saw that Decathlon, Trek, and the Ineos Grenadiers Team were also fielding their full-strength squads for the Vuelta a España.