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

Page 308 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.

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

  • Nuclear Holocoust

    Votes: 27 100.0%

  • Total voters
    27
Yea, about what i expected. Still chasing that illustrious top-10 though! If he shows up with the same ITT legs as he did at the Tour it'll be his undoing. However, I expect a much better showing, due to improved form and riding on his home turf.

Well he's still basically right where he was before Angliru.
Couple of differences at the Tour, rider right behind him was a better TTer, Worlds the following weekend, and not being in good form. Tuesday, he's in his home country, has better form, and this is the last race of the season. Plus the riders around him aren't better TTers than he is. Plus he's higher in GC than at the Tour where he was barely hanging onto a top 10. Yes, with him specifically there is something to riding on home soil. What it is, who knows and it doesn't seem anyone has ever figured it out, but it's there.
 
As I'm not sure it's worthwhile to make a thread for Valverde Team, I'll post this here. One of my friends who's been racing for Valverde team since his cadet days is aging out of U-23 this year and has decided to stop racing. He has graduated college with a degree in Science and Physical Activity and sports. He's going to work as a DS for Valverde Team's Junior team while working on his masters degree in high sports performance. He's planning on staying in the sport just not as a rider.
 
28 GT starts, 17 stage wins or so. Problem for him is he's he's basically running that average in the Vuelta (and the 1 Giro he did) but he never was a prolific stage winner in the Tour. Nor has he had his GTs where just wins a buunch and gets 3+ individual stages.

He's not very far ahead of Froome and Nibali in GT stage wins, and Roglic looks like a big favorite to go way beyond him.
 
28 GT starts, 17 stage wins or so. Problem for him is he's he's basically running that average in the Vuelta (and the 1 Giro he did) but he never was a prolific stage winner in the Tour. Nor has he had his GTs where just wins a buunch and gets 3+ individual stages.

He's not very far ahead of Froome and Nibali in GT stage wins, and Roglic looks like a big favorite to go way beyond him.
Thats what I said. Valverde having 4 TdF wins is a joke for a rider of his size.
To me Valverde is an underachiever. He should have won more and bigger than he did. His mind and his team prevented of it.
 
Thats what I said. Valverde having 4 TdF wins is a joke for a rider of his size.
To me Valverde is an underachiever. He should have won more and bigger than he did. His mind and his team prevented of it.

Part of the problem is that he's spent most of his racing life having little to no confidence in his abilities. Then you have the issue of his being very good at making mistakes that have cost him a bunch of wins.
 
Don't really see Valverde as a big underachiever, outside him never winning Il Lombardia. Incredible longevity and consistency, but not the climbing peak where I'd say "multi GT winner". Maybe he could've won another Vuelta, but it's not that I consider him an underachiever because of it. Also wouldn't see him as an overachiever.


I remember in 2006 local commentators tipping Valrverde as a main TdF favourite together with Landis. That was my first Tour, and I hardly watched anything other than Vuelta 2005, Giro 2006 and some spring classics. So was he really that good back then (I mean TdF winning material)? Had he possibly won that Tour, his career could've been different.
 
I remember in 2006 local commentators tipping Valrverde as a main TdF favourite together with Landis. That was my first Tour, and I hardly watched anything other than Vuelta 2005, Giro 2006 and some spring classics. So was he really that good back then (I mean TdF winning material)? Had he possibly won that Tour, his career could've been different.

Basically he's a favorite for any race he enters for most if not all his career. He's always been about the same as far as his real chance of winning the Tour. His climbing combined with altitude issues were always going to be a hindrance to his winning the Tour. Having said that, he was always going to be a favorite for the Tour, because he was always good enough to be in the conversation. It's unlikely his career would have been much different if he had won one of those earlier Tours. He loves racing too much, and he loves racing a lot and lot of different types of races too much. One reason I don't think his career would have been much different is because the Worlds, not the Tour, was the race he always wanted to win.
 
Basically he's a favorite for any race he enters for most if not all his career. He's always been about the same as far as his real chance of winning the Tour. His climbing combined with altitude issues were always going to be a hindrance to his winning the Tour. Having said that, he was always going to be a favorite for the Tour, because he was always good enough to be in the conversation. It's unlikely his career would have been much different if he had won one of those earlier Tours. He loves racing too much, and he loves racing a lot and lot of different types of races too much. One reason I don't think his career would have been much different is because the Worlds, not the Tour, was the race he always wanted to win.

Well, while Valverde was always amongst the favorites , to me he was never Roglic or Froome type of pre-race favorite. In 2006 according to the commentators back then, he was the main favorite. Hence I asked was he really that good back in 2006. Speaking of wins, I clearly thinh that if he had won a Tour and one more Vuelta even at the expense of 20-40 'small' wins, his career would've been better and certainly different.
Regarding his desire to win the Worlds and not the Tour, my opinion is that him not winning to Rainbow jersey (considering his skillset) at least once would be one of the strangest things in cycling (a bit like Sagan failing to win MSR). Add to that the national pride and the fact that in the later part of his career he wasn't even the best GT rider in his team and you will understand why he wanted the Worlds more than the Tour.
 
Well, while Valverde was always amongst the favorites , to me he was never Roglic or Froome type of pre-race favorite. In 2006 according to the commentators back then, he was the main favorite. Hence I asked was he really that good back in 2006. Speaking of wins, I clearly thinh that if he had won a Tour and one more Vuelta even at the expense of 20-40 'small' wins, his career would've been better and certainly different.
Regarding his desire to win the Worlds and not the Tour, my opinion is that him not winning to Rainbow jersey (considering his skillset) at least once would be one of the strangest things in cycling (a bit like Sagan failing to win MSR). Add to that the national pride and the fact that in the later part of his career he wasn't even the best GT rider in his team and you will understand why he wanted the Worlds more than the Tour.

That's just the commentators. He wasn't any better in 2005=2006 than in 2014.
See he wouldn't do that. He has been asked why he didn't concentrate more on the classics (or on another Vuelta) and his response has never wavered. It's always been: Why should I? Then I wouldn't have the palmares I have today. He was asked once if he would have traded his Worlds podiums (at that point it was 6) for 1 win and he said no way without even hesitating.
He wanted the Worlds more than any other race from the time he was a child. His lifelong friends have talked about the Worlds being the only race he ever talked about wanting to win as a kid and the one race he always dreamed of winning. That he never talked about winning the Tour, it was the Worlds he always wanted.
 
Part of the problem is that he's spent most of his racing life having little to no confidence in his abilities. Then you have the issue of his being very good at making mistakes that have cost him a bunch of wins.
True about the lack of confidence. Once I watch a Purito interview where he said he even had to encourage Valverde during races, even when they were in different teams
 
True about the lack of confidence. Once I watch a Purito interview where he said he even had to encourage Valverde during races, even when they were in different teams

That doesn't surprise me. For someone with so much talent to have no confidence it's amazing. Then to think about the kind of numbers he could have put up if he had just half the confidence that a domestique has is crazy.
 
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