In his four short years as a pro Alejandro Valverde has racked himself an impressive palmares, 2 seconds and third at the World's, a second, a third a fourth, and four stage wins in his three Vuelta outings, Liege and Fleche Wallone in 2006, UCI Pro Tour Champion, along with a host other other races such as the Vueltas of Burgos, Murcia and Valencia, the GP Primavera, GP Villafranca de Ordizia, together with stages in the Vuelta al Pais Vasco, Trofeo Joaquim Agostinho, Vuelta a Aragon, Vuelta a Castilla y León, Dauphiné Libéré, Tour de Romandie and the Critérium International.
In his two appearances at the Tour de France Vallverde has, by his own admission, “had a little bit of bad luck, crashing and having to pull out both times, but at least this year, with some luck I am definitely going to get to Paris”. In 2005 he took a stunning stage win over Armstrong at Courchevel. Up until that point Valverde was probably a bit of an unknown outside of Spain, but his speed to follow and come past an attacking Armstrong made many sit up and take notice. Of that win Valverde said “we were climbing and I was on the limit, I had no doubt Armstrong was going for the Stage as he attacked the group very strongly, I went after him but I was really just hanging on to his wheel, but as we went through the final curve, I just knew I had to dig deeper, I knew then how important that win would be”.
Valverde's whole focus this year has been “with some luck I am definitely going to get to Paris”. No Vuelta a España, no Pro Tour jersey, just the Tour. “First I'm going to focus on the Amstel Gold Race, Fleche Wallone and Liege – other than that, the Tour and the World's are my sole focus”. Valverde finished 6th, 2nd and 2nd respectively in those Classics and felt that although he didn't repeat his double of 2005, he did at least prove that those results were not a fluke. After Liege he told me that “today, like Wednesday, I felt very good all day, on the Côte of Saint-Nicolas, I was really good. When Di Luca and Schleck attacked, everyone expected me to do all the chasing, but I wasn't going to do it all myself and tow them all to the front. I realised that the pace of he group was never going to be enough to catch them, so in the last few hundred metres I decided to try and catch them by myself. I think I did well, but not well enough to catch Di Luca.”
Valverde obviously headed north to the Ardennes with the intention of winning at least one of the three races but hes aid that he was “happy with two second places and the sixth one in the Amstel Gold Race. All in all it is very positive. The team did a great job and personally I am satisfied as I was there fighting for the victory in each of them”. Having shown his colours and proved to himself that last year was not luck, the plan was to have “some rest before concentrating on the Tour de France, which I will prepare for by racing the Dauphiné Libéré.”
Early Days
Valverde comes from Las Lumbreras, a small town on the outskirts of Murcia, the capital of the Spanish province of the same name. It is like a desert down there. Like a lot of Spain, Murcia really reminds me of parts of outback Australia. Bare hills, open dry country, people looking for some shade and relief from the heat. Valverde hasn't yet made it to Australia but agrees that it gets warm “Yes its very hot, dry, flat, but there are some good hills as well! Not like in the Basque Country, but some testing little climbs”.
Both Valverde's father and his brother had raced, so it was natural for him to take it up as well. But athough he was good at it, he didn't always think about the bike as his future. He finished second in his first race, through the wine growing region of Jumilla, and from there he didnt't look back, legend has it that it was his lowest finish in all hs amatuer career. In those year's for Alejandro it was just something to pass the time. “I started on the bike when I was 9 years of age, my father had raced, and so had my brother, so I took it up as a kid, like a hobby, nothing more than that, and in the end it turned out to be my work.”
It wasn't until he turned 18 that Valverde started to think a little more seriously about the bike, he says it was when he “started to take things a little bit more seriously and I started to think then a little about making my future in cycling ... I raced in Murcia as a kid. Cycling is pretty big in Murcia, the weather is good, I liked it a lot and so it was a good place to learn how to race”.
Valverde's “first ride in a big amateur team was with the Banesto amateur squad”. Banesto based far to the north in Navarra had picked Valverde up on the strength of his amatuer results, but being away from home didn't suit the Murciano. After a season without anything much to speak of he returned home to join the Kelme Amatuer squad under the watchful eye of Vicente Belda. A year later, in 2000, he moved up to the Kelme pro team.
Valverde's four years with Kelme saw him, by 2003, emerge as probably the most talented Spanish rider of his generation. In two years 2003-2004 he took close to 25 victories. The coming of the Pro Tour in 2005 forced Valverde to jump ships to Eusebio Unzue at Caiise de Epargne in order to ensure hi chnace at the Tour and Classics. It was in that year, in his first appearance at the Tour that he shocked many by overcoming Armstrong. As the Tour hotted up and headed into the Pyrenees Valverde gave us one of those rare glimpses of something like expectation in that we actually had soemone challenging Armstrong. However, wearing the white young rider's jersey, he was forced to abandon with a knee problem on Stage 13, leavng us all a little dissapointed. The injury saw him miss the Vuelta and only return to race the World's in Madrid – an event in which he finished second once again.
Real Racing
After missing most of the second half of the 2005 season, Valverde started 2006 in fine style, he won a stage in the Vuelta al País Vasco and finished 2nd overall. He then achieved the double in the Spring classics, winning La Flèche Wallonne and Liége-Bastogne-Liége within a space of four days. Leading into the Tour he won a stage at the Tour de Romandie where he finished 3rd.
Valverde is obviously into acceleration, off the bike, other than recovery, sleeping, eating, family and girlfriend, he has one active interest., Porsches! “But I am very much into cars! I have a Porsche Cabriolet and a Porsche 911. I like the Porsches a lot”. Well and good, not being car guy I wanted to know more about whether the Green Bullet could keep it up against the clock. A couple of years ago I wouldn't have rated Valverde against the clock, I would have said he was weak in this area.
But last season things started to turn around. During the run up to the 2006 Tour he travelled to the Pinarello bicycle factory in Treviso, Italy, to optimize his time-trialing position. At home he was training with a SRM Power Meter in order to help him “improve in the time trails and to pick up some climbing speed in the mountains ... Last year I think I did some very good time trials. And so far this year as well. I've done two and I've come first and second in them. I think I have improved in the time trial a lot and it's been very important for me to do this and I'm happy with my progress to date. I feel a lot better in the time trial now than I did before”.
By the time he got to the Tour start he was clearly among the favourites but it was not to be – on Stage 3 he crashed and had to abandon the Tour with a fractured right collarbone. Valverde's focus for the season then became the Pro Tour and the Vuelta. When I asked him why he wasn't concerned about the Pro Tour in 2007 he was forthright: “after the mess at the end of last season in Lombardy and other goings on, the problems between the UCI and the race organisers ... well it doesn't leave you feeling particularly inspired, so I'm not going to bother about the Pro Tour general competition. That kind of stuff is not good for any cyclist, for me, for the team, it's not good for anything.”
It was a bad year for cycling in general, Valverde agreed “A very, very bad year it was indeed”. But it was a year that was in many ways saved by the spectacle of the Vuelta. A race like that had not been seen for a long time. It was a beautiful race. “Yes it was a beautiful race, very beautiful and coming second to Vino in that race – well that was beautiful as well”.
The Vuelta turned into a real humdinger of a battle, and it seemed to mark a new way in which races have been played out. Valverde's style had more than a little to do with that. Cycling seemed to enter a new form of racing after all those years of time trial victories. Last year, I said to Alejandro as we sat together, “you helped something happen”.
“Well yes I think something is happening, it's a lot more exciting, more interesting with riders like Samuel Sanchez, Paolo Bettini, Vinokourov, its a much different style of racing and much more suited to my style and to putting on a great show. That's what I like to do – to put on a show. In the peloton we always seem to be going faster, the races are becoming more open ...”
More open and it seems races can be won or lost on any terrain. Valverde agreed “that's right, last year in the Tour my teammate Oscar Perriero lost time and then regained it when he got into a long break. He then put the pressure on the others by attacking on the descents in the Alpes. And Vino did it to me in the Vuelta into Granada as well. Here we have two races that were virtually decided going downhill. Everything is very open.”
Back to the Tour
Caisse d'Epargne probably have some good reasons to feel uneasy, or cautious about the Tour. Not only because of Valverde's two pull outs to-date, but also because of the lingering question as to who actually won the Tour last year? Valverde says he still doesn't know who won and responded to me asking with “No, I don't know who won, do you?”.
There would seem to be two obstacles to be overcome for Valverde to win the tour this year – to finish and his rivals. Regarding who he had to watch this year he was clear – “Vinokourov and Kloden, well you have to watch Kloden all the time”. Others? “Contador I think its a bit early for him”, the Aussies - Evans Rogers? “I'm not sure – the Australians are always present and they are always dangerous”. Regarding his propensity not to finish I wondered if he felt at all aprehensive about this year's early stages across Belgium. They can be difficult and dangerous stages and we have seem people, like Mayo fall here and never recover. Alejandro thought and responded “Hombre, they are dangerous stages, that's for sure, but in saying that I wouldn't say that I fear them at all. I know they are dangerous but I'm not scared by them”.
Is Alejandro Valverde going to win the Tour this year?
“It's possible, but to win the Tour is always very difficult!”