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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%

  • Total voters
    27
I suspect the full lock down in Spain did have an affect at least on some of the guys. Valverde even said during the lock down there were days he didn't bother with the rollers or trainer. He hates both and during the lock down there were days he just didn't see any reason to bother with either one.
 
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I think the Dauphine course is good for him. Although he hasn't been good in high mountains, he's been fine in the medium mountain/hilly terrain.

I hope Movistar actually rides for stages in the Dauphine and Tour instead holding everything back to preserve Mas's tenuous 9th in GC. They have very few riders who can get results this year even in smaller races, less so with Prades injured.
 
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Mo MSR and Lombardia? Wonder if he is really going all-in for the Worlds


That was known back in June when Unzue, Valverde, Mas, and Soler had a zoom press conference and laid out the plans for all three of their leaders. Valverde specifically said his plan is Burgos, Duaphine, National Championships, Tour, Worlds, LBL, Vuelta although he may not go to LBL depending on if he thinks he can hold form long enough for everything after the Tour or not.
 
I cannot remember a GT where Valverde lost time on purpose to hunt stages. Even when he isn´t good enough to contend he usually just tries to hang on as long as possible. Usually it works out and he sneaks into the top 10 or at least top 15 in the 3rd week.

He never has. His personality and mentality won't allow him to. He was supposed to lose time in 2016, 2018, and 2019 to go stage hunting and never could bring himself to do it.
 
Yes, at this stage winning a Tour stage seems hard against the favourites, even though lots of finishes seem to favour him this year. He will need to give up the GC to go for glory in stages and this year might just be the year where he realises that the competition is very stiff and he is 40 years old. He will be flying in the Vuelta as usual though, Im pretty sure of that and thats enough for me.
 
Yes, at this stage winning a Tour stage seems hard against the favourites, even though lots of finishes seem to favour him this year. He will need to give up the GC to go for glory in stages and this year might just be the year where he realises that the competition is very stiff and he is 40 years old. He will be flying in the Vuelta as usual though, Im pretty sure of that and thats enough for me.
I imagine a few of the stages that suit him are actually very hard to predict in if it's gonna go to the break or not
 
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After today's stage
016-5-1227x920.jpg
 
Unfortunately Valverde seems to be in a very bad place mentally right now. I suspect it's a combination of things (change with parts on the bikes, being locked at home for 2 months etc). From this interview it's very evident that he's extremely discouraged and very unhappy.

 

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