Richard Carapas may not yet be on the podium at Sunday's Vuelta a España, but judging by the emotional words he uttered at the summit of the final mountain stage on Saturday, for the EF Education Easy Post athlete, the GC standings In fact, he has already won the 2024 Buhler Cup. In fact, he already sees the 2024 Vuelta as a very positive turning point in his career.

As the 31-year-old racer explained to journalists after finishing in the Picón Blanco, where his fourth-place finish almost assured him fourth overall in Madrid on Sunday, he says that battling with the other overall challengers throughout the three weeks of the 2024 Vuelta has put his GC performance was on track.

By the 2022 Giro d'Italia, Kalapas was steadily finishing higher in the Grand Tours. Starting with second overall in Italy that year, he finished third in the 2021 Tour de France, second in the 2020 Vuelta a España, overall winner of the 2019 Giro, and fourth in the same race in 2018.

Since then, however, Calapaz has had a much more volatile period GC-wise, and on the first day of the 2023 Tour de France, he completely ruined that year's race with a huge crash and broken knee. [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...]

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