The 3rd Vuelta a España (Tour of Spain), a long-distance bicycle stage race and one of the three grand tours, was held from 12 June to 6 July 1941. It consisted of 21 stages covering a total of . Delio Rodríguez won 12 of the 21 stages and finished in 4th place overall. Fermin Trueba won three stages and the mountains classification and finished only about one minute behind Julián Berrendero, in a race where the winner's time was nearly 170:00:00.
This was the first time that the Vuelta was won by a Spanish rider. The race was organized by "Educacion y Descanco", an organisation in the Franco dictatorship with the goal to promote arts, culture and sports. Teams from several countries (Belgium, France, Portugal, Switzerland, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands) were invited to send a team of four riders, but the countries involved in World War II were unwilling or unable to do so, and only riders from Spain and neutral Switzerland competed in the race.
Rodriguez rose to fame after this race and later became a significant figure in Spanish cycling history.
Teams and riders
Route
+List of stages StageDateCourseDistanceTypeWinner 1 12 June Madrid to Salamanca 2 13 June Salamanca to Cáceres 3 14 June Cáceres to Sevilla 4 16 June Sevilla to Málaga 5 17 June Málaga to Almería 6 18 June Almería to Murcia 7 19 June Murcia to Valencia 8 21 June Valencia to Tarragona 9 22 June Tarragona to Barcelona 10 23 June Barcelona to Zaragoza 11 24 June Zaragoza to Logroño 12 25 June Logroño to San Sebastián 13 26 June San Sebastián to Bilbao 14 28 June Bilbao to Santander 15 29 June Santander to Gijón 16a 30 June Gijón to Oviedo Individual time trial 16b Oviedo to Luarca 17 1 July Luarca to A Coruña 18 2 July A Coruña to Vigo 19 4 July Vigo to Verín 20 5 July Verín to Valladolid 21 6 July Valladolid to Madrid
Results
Final General Classification
RankRiderTeamTime 1 Julián Berrendero 168h 45' 26s 2 Fermin Trueba a 1' 07s 3 José Jabardo a 6' 32s 4 Delio Rodríguez a 29' 17s 5 Antonio Sancho a 35' 40s 6 Antonio Escuriet a 35' 57s 7 Antonio Martín a 46' 04s 8 Vicente Carretero a 54' 25s 9 José Cano a 1h 05' 40s 10 Manuel Izquierdo a 1h 24' 13s 11 José Botanch 12 Benito Cabestreros 13 Miguel Carrion 14 Cayetano Martin 15 Emile Vaucher 16 Martin Santos
References