Translated into English as Tour of Spain, the multi-stage race is the third biggest and part of cycling’s prestigious Grand Tours, with the Tour de France and Giro D’Italia.
The tour started in Turin on Saturday, August 23 with stage races every day outside of two rest days and finished in Madrid on Sunday, September 14.
Eddy raced for Dutch Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) WorldTeam, Team Picnic-PostNL along with Bendigo product Christopher Hamilton.
After completing all 21 stages of the event, Eddy finished 151st with an accumulative time of 79 hours 14 minutes and 35 seconds.
He also finished 55th overall in the youth ranking.
Eddy’s position on the team was a lead-in man for his team’s sprinter, who is the last person to lead the sprinter before they set off to win the race in the last few hundred metres.
Picnic-PostNL’s sprinter Casper Van Uden pulled out of the race in stage 10 with Eddy now given the golden opportunity to be the team’s sprinter and race for himself.
“Patrick in the next couple of sprint stages will get a chance to do a bit of racing for himself, which is super exciting,” Eddy’s mother Kirsty Donchi said.
“It's a big, big thing for him to be able to go into that sprinter role, it’s super exciting for him to get that opportunity.’’
Eddy’s best stage performance came following the switch to sprinter, finishing 40th and 18th in stages 18 and 19, respectively.
Eddy technically finished second in stages 11 and the final stage, but everyone was given that finishing position when the stages had to be called off early due to pro-Palestine protestors.
Eddy began his cycling journey at Echuca-Moama Cycling Club, before moving to Bendigo to seize growing opportunities.
Throughout his junior years of cycling, Eddy had a close and successful relationship with his brother Sam.
“He started in Echuca as a youngster, getting involved in cycling through Echuca-Moama Cycling Club with his brother,” Donchi said.
“They often raced together and trained together and motivated each other quite a lot throughout.
“One of the reasons we moved over (to Bendigo) was to continue to pursue the cycling journey.
“Him and his brother continued on and ended up coming first and second in the national championships in 2019 and then after that, he was selected for worlds.
“From there, things have just gotten bigger and bigger.”
Donchi reflected on her son’s achievements and his participation in one of the biggest multi-stage races in the world.
“For him to get selected for Vuelta was a pretty big deal for us as a family and very proud of where he's come from and what he's achieved,” Donchi said.
“It's pretty exciting, I would just give anything to be there, we only officially knew that he was in the team probably two weeks before, so that made it next to impossible for any of his family to be there.
“But, we are all extremely proud and very excited for him to take this next step in his cycling career.”
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