ITV4 lost the rights to the Vuelta a Espana a couple of years back. The highlights willl still be on free to air UK TV though. They’ll be on Quest, which is a channel you may not think you have, but probably actually do. The race starts tomorrow (Saturday).
If you’re a casual cycling fan, I urge you to scroll down your TV’s digital listings thing and find it. The Vuelta is an easy race to follow as the points and mountains classifications seem so much less significant than at the Tour. Most years, there’s action in the general classification almost daily, on top of which most years the field is very strong.
Live coverage
You can get live coverage on Eurosport. A lot of people have Eurosport as part of their TV package, but if you don’t, you can sign up for what is now called the Discovery+ Player. It’s £6.99 a month – which will cover the entire race – or £59.99 for a whole year (for which you would get live coverage of pretty much all the other major bike races this season and most of next season). The Discovery+ Player means you can follow the entire race on your phone, your laptop or via a TV app (or even on your telly plugged into your laptop as a workaround).
Highlights
A daily one-hour highlights programme will be broadcast on Quest at 7pm (although it’ll be 11pm for the first stage as it’s an evening affair). This is a Eurosport production and is much the same as the programme they do for the Giro each year. Quest is available on Freeview and most of the other UK TV platforms, so there’s a good chance that you’ll be able to get it.
You can (and should!) also subscribe to get weekly email recaps of the race from me.
This is an updated version of last year’s article about UK TV coverage of the Vuelta a Espana.
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