18:45 CEST (Central European Summer Time) on Saturday 26th August 2023. That is 17:45 in the UK, and 12:45 on the US East Coast.
Make sure to check how your own time zone differs from Central European Time to make sure you meet the entry deadline!
VELOGAMES Fantasy Vuelta 2023 (now known as SPAIN 2023 for legal reasons) has launched.
Velogames is a free web site that runs fantasy cycling games on various cycle races including Grand Tours such as the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and Vuelta a España.
Their tour games are perfect for those of you that don’t have much time but like to have a go, as the only time you need to spend on any of their classic games is at the beginning selecting a team before the start of the race (as there are no transfers at all in Velogames Grand Tour cycling classic games tables).
However, in a recent change for those that like a more in-depth challenge there are transfers available in Velogames new Stage Hunter games tables (but for my money leagues I do not pay attention to these tables).
So please click on this link to check their website out and familiarise yourself with the rules and how points are awarded: Velogames / Spain 2023
The game is free and you can be in up to 10 private mini leagues.
Now to create some rivalry I have set up a private mini league which I am taking a fiver (£5) off anyone who comes in to it. This is just to make up a prize for the eventual winner of my mini-league. Now because Velogames keeps the same mini leagues for every game these days it will automatically put people in my existing league carried over from the Tour de France game who were in my WTA league for that game and as I can not be sure everyone will want to play again for money and currently Velogames does not give me the option to remove people from my leagues I have removed myself from that league and set up a brand new one with the same name (WINNER TAKES ALL) but with a different joining code (see below) for the SPAIN 2023 game.
So if you want to join my money league for the Vuelta you need to join the new league - to avoid confusion (as both leagues have the same name) it is easy to remove yourself from the existing league - just go into it and click leave league and then confirm and that’s it. Easy way to know if your in the right league is do you see my team in their as I have already left the old league and joined the new one so if you don’t see this team in the league your in - your in the wrong one:
League Name: WINNER TAKES ALL
The leagues code is: 703574516
I think by the leagues name it’s self-explanatory how the money gets paid out - more teams in the league, more money for the winner.
So, click the link, pick a team, join my league and get a fiver to me ASAP (unless you have money on account with me - in which case contact me and tell me to take it out of that).
PAYMENT : Just PM me from here (TFP forum) for how to pay if you don’t see me in person and don’t know the SP (standard procedure).
best regards as always,
bluelionman / Noel Symonds
Fan Pub Founding Member
UK Television coverage:
Live coverage
You can get live coverage on Eurosport. A lot of people have Eurosport as part of their TV package, but if you don’t, you can sign up for what is now called the Discovery+ Player. It’s £6.99 a month STANDARD – which will include Eurosports channels and cover the entire race – or £59.99 for a whole year (for which you would get live coverage of pretty much all the other major bike races this season and most of next season). The Discovery+ Player means you can follow the entire race on your phone, your laptop or via a TV app (or even on your telly plugged into your laptop as a workaround).
FREE Highlights
Quest TV nightly at 7:00pm
A daily one-hour highlights programme will be broadcast on Quest at 7pm (although it’ll be 11pm for the first stage as it’s an evening affair). This is a Eurosport production and is much the same as the programme they do for the Giro each year. Quest is available on Freeview and most of the other UK TV platforms, so there’s a good chance that you’ll be able to get it.
Also I have found this highlights show loaded up for free on the Discovery+ website and Discovery+ app to play for free when you want but frustratingly found during the Giro they were often late uploading the shows after broadcast and could be anything from 8 hours after broadcast up to two days before they would show and often stages would be listed out of order and mixed up with the full race broadcast and highlights listed side by side, the player never remembers what episode you last finished either jumping back to play an earlier one or moving on to play the next episode listed which could be a full stage after you finished a highlights episode. A right ball-ache!
To see how your fantasy team is doing compared to the others in the mini league just visit the Velogames website and log in every evening (after the stage has finished to see updated scores - though personally I don’t unless I am up to date with the highlights shows - kind of spoils the racing otherwise for me).
All the best and I really hope to see some new teams in my mini-league this year (as well as all the old regulars).
