I'm wondering why the Tour de France gets most of the press. The Vuelta a Espana (Tour of Spain) is almost identical, 21 stages, 1818 miles, several mountain stages, one team time trial and two individual time trials. Does anyone know ?


Mel

Maybe one of the reasons is that came late in the season.

Pepe

The Tour de France was the first of the Big Three Tours (Giro, Vuelta and
Tour de France) to coomence in the early 20th century.
And in many ways it was the first of the Big Three Tours to attract
international competition.
Unlike the Tour de France, the Giro and the Vuelta attracted mostly Italian
(Giro) and Spanish (Vuelta) riders for many, many years.
Little or no non-Italian or non-Spanish riders participated
in either respective tour for many, many years.
And I think that in cycling terms, the Tour de France was seen as being more
presentative of cycling in terms of who was the best stage racer
in a given cycling era.

Also, the Tour de France is intrinsically linked with the French national holidays and it is seen (and is promoted) as a great cultural event in France and within Europe.
The Giro and Vuelta are not as closely identified with their respective national identities when compared to the Tour de France.

(I agree with you though, the Giro and Vuelta are as good, in my opinion)

Hmm, thanks for the post, very interesting, I was just wondering.

Mel

IMHO, the Vuelta a españa is too late in the season.
The ppl training for the world championships won't race there, and the ppl coming from the tour hardly will participate.
jus my :2c:

The Vuelta doesn't have the level of competition of the Tour.

__________________
-Brent