The 78th Tour of Spain will start this Saturday in Barcelona at 18:55 CET time, with a team time trial and the forecasts of the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) that gives up to 95 percent chances that it will rain between the 18 and 24 hours.
The starting point will be Playa del Somorrostro in the populous Barceloneta and the first team to start will be Caja Rural-Seguros RGA at 6:55 p.m.
The other twenty-one teams that will follow them on the starting ramp of the platform located in the waters of the beach will start every four minutes and the last to do so, at 20:19, will be the current winner's Soudal-Quick Step from La Vuelta, the Belgian Remco Evenpoel.
In fact, in the time slot in which the test will take place, the yellow alert is activated for rain, with an expected accumulation of up to 20 liters in one hour, and for storms with a probability of hail.
In addition, the wind is expected to blow with variable intensity and gusts above 10 km/h, which once the stage is over can reach 50 km/h.
In the memory is the initial team time trial that started in the Salinas de Torrevieja, in 2019, in which the entirety of the UAE Emirates went to the ground in a curve, and of the Jumbo-Visma up to four men went to the ground in the same point.
Among the men who found their bones on the ground was the Slovenian Primoz Roglic who started as the favorite to win and who finally managed to score the first of the three Vueltas he has to his credit.
Also involved in the fall of the UAE was a very young Tadej Pogacar who was contesting his first Grand Tour and ended up taking the third step of the Madrid podium along with Roglic and Alejandro Valverde.
The fault on that occasion was also the water, but not the rain, but the breakage of a toy pool that wet the asphalt enough to cause a few runners to fall.
