Vuelta a España Since 1979, the event has been staged and managed by Unipublic, until in 2014, when Amaury Sport Organisation acquired control, with both working together. The peloton expanded from a primarily Spanish participation to include riders from all over the world. The Vuelta is a UCI World Tour event, which means that the teams that compete in the race are mostly UCI ProTeams, with the exception of the wild card teams that the organizers can invite. Along with the Tour de France and Giro d'Italia, the Vuelta makes up cycling's prestigious, three-week-long Grand Tours. While the route changes each year, the
2012 Vuelta a España of , who finished second in the 2012 Giro d'Italia, Igor Antón of , Jurgen Van den Broeck of , Damiano Cunego of and Robert Gesink of . Riders who could have made the top ten included Froome's Colombian teammates at , Rigoberto Urán and Sergio Henao, 's Bauke Mollema, 's Maxime Monfort, 's Thomas De Gendt and 's Nicolas Roche. For details see 2012 Vuelta a España, Stage 1 to Stage 11 and 2012 Vuelta a España, Stage 12 to Stage 21 There were four main classifications contested in the 2012 Vuelta a España, with the most important being