La Vuelta Femenina 2024: How to watch on Eurosport and discovery+

The first women’s Grand Tour of the season commences this weekend: La Vuelta Femenina.

It has been expanded to include eight stages spanning across 867km in what will be the first edition of the race since Annemiek van Vleuten’s retirement.

There are a number of contenders to fill the void left by the three-time champion of this event, including reigning Tour de France Femmes champion Demi Vollering and Elisa Longo Borghini, who already has three race victories this season.

Here is all the essential information you need to know about La Vuelta Femenina, including how to watch on discovery+, the route and who is racing.

The 2024 edition of La Vuelta Femenina will take place between April 28 and May 5.

Coverage of the race starts at 15:00 UK time on Sunday.

Vollering will be among the favourites to take the crown of Van Vleuten, but is yet to reach top form so far this year.

Longo Borghini and Gaia Realini give Lidl-Trek two options for glory, while Canyon-SRAM will be looking to the likes of Kasia Niewiadoma and Ricarda Bauernfeind to take Van Vleuten’s crown.

Mavi Garcia is representing Liv-AlUla-Jayco and heads into this Grand Tour with confidence after securing a third-place finish at the UAE Tour.

Juliette Labous is riding for dsm-firmenich-PostNL, and has proven her consistency after finishing in the top 10 in every appearance at the La Vuelta Femenina, Giro d’Italia Women and Tour de France Femmes.

Riejanne Markus of Visma-Lease a Bike will also have a point to prove after narrowly missing out on a podium place in last year’s race, while Ashleigh Moolman Pasio and Sarah Gigante are AG Insurance-Soudal’s leading contenders.

The race gets underway in Valencia with the team time trial lasting 16km, and is longer than the 14.5km TTT stage in last year’s opener in Torrevieja.

Stages 2 and 3 take place between Bunol and Moncafar and Llucena to Teruel respectively, before the longest 142km stretch of the race in Stage 4 that starts at Molina de Aragon and finishes in Zaragoza.

The only way is up from that point – literally – as riders take on a category two climb into the Pyrenees at Jaca in Stage 5, before an even tougher Stage 6 finish at Lago de Vinuesa.

Stage 7 concludes at altitude in Siguenza, before the Grand Tour reaches its crescendo in the ascent at Valdesqui.