The final grand tour of the season, La Vuelta a Espana is set to get underway on Tuesday in Irun. The Spanish grand tour, shortened to 18 stages in this Covid-19 affected season, will conclude with the final stage in Madrid on 8 November.
The 2020 Vuelta a Espana will be a unique edition of the race, taking place a month later than usual. With the final stage set for 8 November, it will also bring the 2020 professional cycling season to a close.
NTT Pro Cycling (NTTProCycling.com) line up for the Vuelta a Espana still without a title partner for next year but look forward to the opportunity the Spanish grand tour presents, to fight for its future.
NTT Pro Cycling's La Vuelta lineup includes 3 South Africans; Nicholas Dlamini, Stefan de Bod and Reinardt Janse van Rensburg. For de Bod, La Vuelta will be his debut grand tour.
Our lineup includes two more debutants as Gino Mader and Benjamin Dyball have also been selected to represent the South African UCI World Tour Team.
Completing our roster will be Carlos Barbero, who starts his 2nd La Vuelta, and the experienced duo of Enrico Gasparotto and Michael Valgren.
Alex Sans Vega – Sport Director
It is great that the Vuelta a Espana has finally arrived, albeit later in the year and under these very different circumstances. Also, for our team, without a title partner announced for next year yet, we start the Vuelta knowing it is the last race of the year and the final opportunity for us to showcase ourselves and the purpose we race for. The team we have for La Vuelta is aligned to race with this sense of freedom, without a GC leader, but with fighters who can target stage wins. We are motivated and excited and hope the race can run its course in a safe way all the way to the end.
Nicholas Dlamini
I’m very happy to start the 2nd grand tour of my career, after being at the Vuelta last year already. It’s been a tough year for everyone and the fact that we still get to start grand tours is awesome. I gained a lot of experience from last year's La Vuelta and I look to use all that I’ve learned last year, and this year, to get the best out of myself for the team. The guys at the Giro d'Italia have boosted and motivated us with the way they’ve been riding, so we want to try and continue with the momentum that they have got going, here at La Vuelta too.
Stefan de Bod
I am looking forward to this Vuelta a Espana. I missed out on my first grand tour last year due to visa issues, so I am very excited about being on the start line with the team on Tuesday. I just hope that the race will not be disturbed by Covid-19 any further and that we can race to end the season on a high.
Reinardt Janse van Rensburg
The Vuelta is the final grand tour and final race of what has been very busy and reorganized season. Michael Valgren and I will be racing Tour of Flanders on Sunday and then head straight to Spain to start Vuelta on Tuesday. We are really looking forward to this challenge and together with the team we will be looking to make the most of it, searching for opportunities, and fighting for stage victories.
Carlos Barbero
This will be a different Vuelta without fans on the road, but it is necessary to adapt to the circumstances and make the race as safe as possible for everyone. The race itself will also be very different because of the time of year and the weather this brings. Personally, I hope to play a strong role on the stages where the parcour will suit me and then in the mountain stages to help the young climbers in our team.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of NTT Pro Cycling.
About NTT Pro Cycling:
Founded in 2007, NTT Pro Cycling (formerly Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka) (NTTProCycling.com) became the first-ever African cycling team to gain a WorldTour license, in 2016. With the support of our headline sponsor and technology innovation partner, NTT, we are the most purpose-driven, performance-led, and technology-enabled team in pro cycling today.
Our ambition is to continue to race at the highest levels in world cycling, to develop riders to realise their full potential and to inspire and motivate people across the African continent to ride bicycles.
We have bases in South Africa, Denmark, the Netherlands and Italy.
We also ride to raise awareness for Qhubeka, a global charity operating in South Africa, through our #BicyclesChangeLives campaign.
The hands on the back of the team race jersey are a reminder that every Qhubeka bicycle is a helping hand up to a beneficiary, which are provided through Qhubeka's learn-to-earn and work-to-earn programmes
About Qhubeka:
Qhubeka (Qhubeka.org) is a charity that moves people forward with bicycles. People earn bicycles through our programmes, improving their access to schools, clinics and jobs.
A bicycle is a tool that helps people to travel faster and further, and to carry more. In the face of extreme and persistent poverty, bicycles can change lives by helping to address socioeconomic challenges at the most basic level – helping people to get where they need to go.
About NTT Ltd. :
NTT Ltd. (hello.global.ntt) is a global technology services company bringing together the expertise of leaders in the field, including NTT Communications, Dimension Data and NTT Security. We partner with organizations around the world to shape and achieve outcomes through intelligent technology solutions. For us, intelligent means data driven, connected, digital and secure. As a global ICT provider, we employ more than 40,000 people in a diverse and dynamic workplace and deliver services in over 200 countries and regions. Together we enable the connected future.
Visit us at our new website: hello.global.ntt
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