The 53rd edition of the Vuelta a España was held 5 to 27 September 1998 and began in Córdoba and ended in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

. The 1998 Vuelta had 22 stages over with the winning average speed of . Spaniard

Abraham Olano Abraham Olano Manzano (born 22 January 1970 in Anoeta, Gipuzkoa) is a Spanish retired professional road racing cyclist, who raced between 1992 and 2002. He won the World Road Championship in 1995, and the World Time Trial Championship in 19 ...

took the leader's jersey after the first individual time trial with 41 seconds over Frenchman

Laurent Jalabert Laurent Jalabert (born 30 November 1968) is a French former professional road racing cyclist, from 1989 to 2002. Affectionately known as ''"Jaja"'' (slang for a glass of wine; when he continued drinking wine as a professional, the nickname stuck ...

. Olano's lead in the mountains decreased each stage as teammate

José María Jiménez Jose María Jiménez Sastre (February 6, 1971 in El Barraco, Spain - December 6, 2003 in Madrid) was a professional road bicycle racer. During his career he excelled as a climber, winning numerous mountain stages. His nickname was "El Chava" ...

marked Olano's rivals and took several stage wins in the process until Jiménez took the jersey from Olano on the final mountain stage to Alto de Navacerrada with Olano in third place at 38 seconds. On the following day's individual time trial, Olano took back the lead to win the only

Grand Tour The Grand Tour was the principally 17th- to early 19th-century custom of a traditional trip through Europe, with Italy as a key destination, undertaken by upper-class young European men of sufficient means and rank (typically accompanied by a tut ...

of his career. The race also saw the astonishing comeback of

Lance Armstrong Lance Edward Armstrong ('' né'' Gunderson; born September 18, 1971) is an American former professional road racing cyclist. Regarded as a sports icon for winning the Tour de France seven consecutive times from 1999 to 2005 after recovering fr ...

after he was diagnosed with advanced testicular cancer in 1996. Armstrong's fourth-place finish was stripped by

USADA The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA, ) is a non-profit, non-governmental 501(c)(3) organization and the national anti- doping organization (NADO) for the United States. To protect clean competition and the integrity of sport and prevent ...

in 2012 due to doping.

Teams

A total of 22 teams were invited to participate in the 1998 Vuelta a España. Seventeen of the competing squads were Trade Team I teams, four teams were Trade Team II teams, while the other team was Trade Team III. Each team sent a squad of nine riders, so the Vuelta began with a peloton of 198 cyclists, a total of 108 riders made it to the finish in Madrid. The 22 teams invited to the race were:

Stages

Classification leadership

Final standings

General classification

Points classification

Mountains classification

Sprints classification

Team classification

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vuelta a Espana, 1998 1998 1998 in road cycling 1998 in Spanish sport September 1998 sports events in Europe