Spain’s smiling. One of their own, the cyclist they all want to be, the athlete they can all relate to, the rider who embodies the passion, the suffering and beauty of this most ludicrous and rewarding of sports, has his annual moment of glory. We could be talking about Mikel Landa, another rider who hails from the school of hard knocks and glorious failures also known as Movistar, but instead we’re talking about a rider who often rivals and surpasses the original Landismo: Marc Soler.
An obedient domestique the rest of the year, a valued and committed lieutenant for Tadej Pogačar at the Tour de France, at the Vuelta a España it’s Soler’s race. It’s his parcours, his moments to shine, his people. A tomar por culo – to hell with it – it’s Soler Time. He dispenses with his helper duties and personifies what the roadside spectators all want to be and all want to see: a pure, organic, attacking, riding-on-feel bike rider. Leaving everything out on the road, his mullet pokes through the bottom of his helmet, his lanky frame hunches awkwardly over the bike, and he rocks from side to side. He’s got his unique style on the bike, and flow and style of it: he's un crack, a personaje – a larger than life character, always gesticulating, always with an opinion, never dull, never silent. Always entertaining.
At the bottom of the Farrapona on stage 14 of the Vuelta a España, he and his breakaway colleague Johannes Staune-Mittet had more than three minutes over the peloton that was being led by his teammates UAE Team Emirates-XRG. Soler claimed he was prepared to drop back and assist his leader João Almeida, but this was Soler Time. He distanced Staune-Mittet – adiós, hasta nunca – and then rode his own pace all the way to top, suffering and enjoying and embracing his moment. He won by 39 seconds. He had made it.
Soler's only won 10 races in his career, but four of them have came at his home Grand Tour.
This was his fourth Vuelta career stage win and there could have been far more. Since joining UAE from Movistar in 2022, he’s participated in the last four Vueltas, and featured in 19 breakaways. Nineteen. Basically an entire Grand Tour out front.
Whenever he wins – and his courage has form for being rewarded at least once a year – there’s collective euphoria among his compatriots. One of their own has triumphed. The man with Movistar tendencies built into him has adopted the prolificacy of a UAE rider. What a combination: a plucky winner.
For UAE, it’s their seventh stage success of the Vuelta. There have only been 14 stages so far. They count seven of the last nine stage victories. Soler’s won one, so too has Almeida, and Jay Vine and Juan Ayuso each have two. Time for Ivo Oliveria, Domen Novak, Mikkel Bjerg and Felix Großschartner to step up and complete the set, no? This is a team that without Tadej Pogačar can appear dysfunctional, embodying those very same Movistar characteristics of disorder and mystifying tactics that Soler inherently brings with him, but it’s also a richly-assembled team of Galáticos, of superstars a step above their competitors. They’re the Real Madrid of cycling: always winning, always succeeding, always breaking the hearts of the rest. This is the team's 80th win of the season. There remains almost two months of elite level bike racing to go in 2025 – a century of victories isn’t an impossibility.
Maybe in the next week UAE will win more. They almost certainly will. Almeida might even win them the Vuelta – he’s 48 seconds adrift of Jonas Vingegaard in red. If it’s to be more stage wins and not the GC, it might be Soler adding to their tally, but it could be any one of their eight riders. Regardless of what eventuates, once again the Catalan has accomplished his yearly task: to win with panache, to win by giving it all without any care of the consequences and without any thoughts of tomorrow, and to win for the love of cycling because it’s what his people demand. El crack has his country smiling again.
