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Teams & Riders He's coming home!!!! Alejandro Valverde comeback thread.

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What will Valverde's impact be the cycling world in 2012

  • Nuclear Holocoust

    Votes: 27 100.0%

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    27
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Think they're worse than in Richmond. Valverde isn't as explosive as he was back then. His sprint is worse. The route isn't so hard that pure climbing ability helps very much. It's well possible it gets terrible weather.

Here's one difference, according to Valverde the Richmond course was horrible for him and he said even after the race he was surprised to have finished 5th because he thought he'd be lucky to finish in the top 10 due to course not being very hard. This one he has said is ok for him, but better for other riders. So he's going into this one feeling he has a better chance than he had at Richmond based on the course layout.
 
Wow, amazing. Imagine what he could have accomplished if he believed he could! They didn't get him a sports psychologist?

No kidding. The former pro said it's scary to imagine what he could have done with just half the confidence of the domestiques like him who had probably 100 times the confidence of Valverde with less than a tenth the ability. The sports psychologigist the team has was asked about motivating different riders which he talked about then asked about Valverde because of how long he's been racing and he said I wish I had a team full of riders just like him as he's the easiest guy on the planet to motivate. Just hand him his bike, tell him when the race starts and point him in the direction of the start line and he's good. I'm not sure they knew how to deal with his lack of confidence esp when he's been one of the most prolific winners in the sport who isn't a sprinter.
 
Why not. He's racing for 2 more years (likely retiring there although has kept the door just slightly open to racing past that), will be with Movistar for at least 3 years after that in some capacity (thought is possibly as a coach), and has his amateur team which he added a U-23 and elite (amateur) team to all the other teams and this year for the first time floated the idea that if he can get the sponsorship is looking to add a Continental team to the full list of teams he runs. So he'll still be around the sport for a long time to come.
 
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