1983 Vuelta a España

The 38th "Vuelta a España" (Tour of Spain), a long-distance bicycle stage race and one of the 3 grand tours, was held from April 19 to May 8, 1983. It consisted of 19 stages covering a total of 3398 km, and was won by Bernard Hinault of the Renault-Elf-Gitane cycling team. The foreign favourites for the race included Bernard Hinault who had won the Vuelta once before in 1978 and World Champion Giuseppe Saronni. The Spanish favourites for the race included the de facto defending champion Marino Lejarreta, Julián Gorospe and Alberto Fernández.

Hinault took the leadership of the race after the fifth stage only to lose it the following day to Lejarreta. Lejarreta then won the stage 8 38 kilometre mountain time trial and increased his lead over Hinault. On the stage from Zaragoza to Soria that was won by Saronni, Lejarreta had a fall and lost the jersey to Gorospe. Fernández took the leadership the following day. Lejarreta came back and won the stage 13 to Lagos de Covadonga. However Fernández kept the leader’s jersey. On the following stage Álvaro Pino took the jersey and wore it for two days. Hinault won the individual time trial but did not win by enough time to take the jersey which passed again to Gorospe. Two days later Hinault’s pace on the climb to Puerto de Serranillos was too hot for his opponents and he won the stage in Ávila and took back the leader’s jerseycite web|url=http://www.lavuelta.com/05/ingles/historia/83infor.asp?a=1983&s=infor&t=infor&e=1|title=1983 General Information|publisher=La Vuelta.com|accessdate=2008-01-18] to win his second Vuelta and his eighth grand tour with Lejarreta second and Fernández in third. Due to the great battle that was waged in the race between Hinault and the Spanish riders the race as being described as the most spectacular edition of the race. However due to the nature of the battle which Hinault fought to win, he sustained a tendinitis injury that had previously affected his 1980 season and would be unable to ride the Tour de France. [cite web|url=http://www.velo101.com/magazine/default.asp?Id=114&Section=Histoire|title=Grand Prix des Nations 1984 :Le retour du Blaireau|publisher=Velo 101.com|accessdate=2008-01-19]

Results

Final General Classification

References

External links

* [http://www.lavuelta.com/ La Vuelta (Official site in Spanish, English, and French)]