La Vuelta Femenina 26 by Carrefour.es : Two days to go …
May 1 st 2026 - 18:45 [GMT + 2]
· The city of Marín, start town of the first stage of La Vuelta Femenina 26 by Carrefour.es next Sunday, is already hosting the pre-race operations of the fourth edition of the Spanish grand tour under its current week-long format.
· The Alto de l’Angliru is the main feature of a course that is set to be the hardest to date in this event, with 14,500 metres of elevation gain spread across its 7 stages. One of them, Stage 5 from León to Astorga, is a celebration of renowned Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí.
· 18 teams will fight for La Roja, the red jersey awarded to the best rider in the overall standings. Together, they will put on a great race for viewers following the extensive worldwide coverage of La Vuelta Femenina 26 by Carrefour.es from May 3 to 9.
An “interesting, exciting” start from Galicia
After three straight years with an opening TTT to break the ice, the 2026 edition of La Vuelta Femenina by Carrefour.es will begin with a standard, road stage. This will mark the first of four days visiting each one of the provinces in Galicia. “The course might look easy on paper for some people, but the terrain in Galicia is undulating, complicated - in one word, challenging,” says race director Fernando Escartín. “We hope for fair weather, although we will surely get some rain showers here and there. It’s going to be an interesting start, with some exciting stages that will be called at the last minute as the course offers many opportunities for some teams to speed up and try to drop the pure sprinters off the peloton.” Escartín thinks that the overall standings will be decided in the final two days, though. “We forecast a scenario where everything comes down to the final two stages to Les Praeres and the Alto de l’Angliru, but a one-week race can play out in many different ways. There might be splits or breakaways already in Galicia, and the wind can well become a factor in León. It will be a very demanding race, with many excellent riders on the start list looking forward to standing out.”
The toughest edition yet of La Vuelta Femenina by Carrefour.es
Lumpy by nature, the terrain in northwest Spain is unforgiving and will demand the best from the riders competing in La Vuelta Femenina by Carrefour.es. Every stage except one (the fifth, from León to Astorga) will cover more than 1,800 metres of elevation gain, bringing the overall climbing load to 14,500 metres spread across 7 days, well beyond the 10,331m recorded in 2025 and the 11,092m (over 8 stages) in 2024. At 3,266 metres of elevation gain, the final journey from Pola de Laviana to the Alto de l’Angliru is set to be the first stage in the history of this race to require more than 3,000 metres of climbing - the previous record being the 2,724m of last year’s finale atop Cotobello. The Angliru also represents an unprecedented challenge for the women’s peloton. It consists of 12.4 kilometres at an average of 9.7%, with slopes as steep as 23% and entire kilometres climbing well above 15% to cover 1,200 metres of elevation gain. All this makes it the most gruelling climb ever faced in the Spanish grand tour.
A course rich in human and natural works of art
This year’s course is rich in many ways - not just the many sporting challenges riders will have to overcome. The Spanish heritage is going to be extensively featured throughout the week, the main highlight being the fifth stage as its route is designed to celebrate Antoni Gaudí, the centenary of whose death falls in 2026. The renowned architect only projected three buildings outside his home region, Catalonia, and two of them are featured in this particular day - the Casa Botines modernist museum, near the stage start in León, and the Gothic-style Palacio Episcopal, at the finish in Astorga. When planning his majestic Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Gaudí said “no work of man could ever surpass the work of God.” This is a good reason not to overlook the beauty of the natural parks the peloton will ride through in the stages of Galicia and Asturias, and particularly the passage in the closing kilometres of Stage 3 near Caión, a historic whale-fishing port on the edge of the Costa da Morte (‘The Death Coast’), just by the Atlantic Ocean - one of the many sites that will offer breathtaking pictures to cycling fans.
A quality field in the hunt for La Roja
18 teams will participate in La Vuelta Femenina 26 by Carrefour.es, hoping to bring home La Roja - the red jersey awarded daily to the best rider in the overall standings. For the first time in history, all 14 teams belonging to the UCI Women’s WorldTour (the top tier in women’s cycling) will be present on the start line. Of these, only two have competed in all 12 editions of this event: Team Picnic PostNL (under its incarnations Liv, Sunweb and DSM) and UAE Team ADQ (previously known as Alé). None of the participating teams are new to the Spanish grand tour, although Mayenne Monbana My Pie is only entering it for the second time, having previously competed as Winspace in 2024. Three of the participating teams have already achieved the overall victory in the current format: Movistar Team (Annemiek van Vleuten, 2023), Team SD Worx-Protime (Demi Vollering, 2024) and FDJ-Suez (Vollering again, 2025). In terms of stage wins, Visma-Lease a Bike has scored 7 (all 6 by Marianne Vos plus the 2023 opening TTT in Torrevieja), leading these standings over SD Worx-Protime (6), FDJ United-Suez and Lidl-Trek (3).
Extensive worldwide coverage for La Vuelta Femenina 26 by Carrefour.es
The Spanish Grand Tour is enjoying coverage as global as ever, with its two-hour daily broadcast being shown worldwide by a wide range of networks. Returning from last year are Eurosport / HBO Max (Europe and Asia-Pacific), RTVE (Spain), RTBF (Belgium), TV2 (Denmark), OKKO (Russia), FloSports (Canada), NBC Sports / Peacock (USA), ESPN (covering 18 territories in Latin America), SBS (Australia), Sky NZ (New Zealand), JSports (Japan), Supersport (Africa) and Abu Dhabi Media (MENA). Four new broadcasters have joined the list: Sporza (Belgium), TNT Sports (United Kingdom), Zhibo.TV (China) and beIN Sports (covering 10 territories in Asia). The range of options for fans to follow the race is even wider as they will be able to find additional content on the race’s social media channels (handle @lavueltafem, hashtag #LaVueltaFemenina) where a 5- to 8-minute highlights movie will be released daily in both English and Spanish. All the information about the event, including the Race Center, which offers live coverage of every pedal stroke, is available on the official website, lavueltafemenina.es.
