Never said Spanish only, Spanish eccentric which is different. He's not skipping the Ardennes, which as far as I know aren't in Spain.
Why only eccentric races in Spain?
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Never said Spanish only, Spanish eccentric which is different. He's not skipping the Ardennes, which as far as I know aren't in Spain.
Why only eccentric races in Spain?
Every year in the fall he says he wants to go to the Giro and skip the Tour and then every year Unzue finds a way to force him into riding the Tour to deploy the three pronged attack that never works...
Anyway he seems really certain that it will be the last year, if he's showing the same shape seen this year will be a bit sour to see him retire, i know that there are people convinced that is better to go out on an high but i've always been on the side of the ones that prefer to go on until they can to avoid having regret or worse needing to come back like some does.
Alejandro Valverde confirma su adiós: "2022 será mi último año al cien por cien"
Alejandro Valverde ha confirmado que, como estaba previsto, el próximo será el último año en el pelotón internacional. Lo ha hecho este martes en plena concentración de Movistar enwww.marca.com
Never said Spanish only, Spanish eccentric which is different. He's not skipping the Ardennes, which as far as I know aren't in Spain.
Stupid decision on both his and the teams part. He could win at Valencia and he had promised the Spanish races he would race them in his final season. He has zero chance of doing anything at Amstel.
Hmmm...
Usually is, but last year it was from 14-18.04 and was overlapping with AmstelIsn't Valencia usually in February, which would mean that normally there wouldn't be a scheduling conflict between it and Amstel?
Usually is, but last year it was from 14-18.04 and was overlapping with Amstel
Right, this year, my mistake.Yes, exactly. It could be that his original plan had been to ride both, but of course that wasn't possible this year. (Not last year, last year it did happen on its original dates, while Amstel didn't happen.)
Isn't Valencia usually in February, which would mean that normally there wouldn't be a scheduling conflict between it and Amstel?
That's besides the point. Re-reading the pre-Amstel pages of this thread is hilarious.
Right, this year, my mistake.
That's probably where I got the "Spain ONLY!" thing from.
I was gonna criticize Valverdes competition cause Valverde didn't race against that one guy who gets all the podiums.So, I did some counting. I counted the amount of podiums in big races all countries have gotten in the time from 2003 to 2021 in the 10 big races (GTs, Monuments, WCRR, Olympic Road Race). I have used results as obtained on the road apart from immediate disqualifications (PR 2006 and the train incident), so official results might disagree. Here is the list:
1: Italy - 91
2: Belgium - 63
3: Spain (excluding Valverde) - 58
4: Alejandro Valverde - 27
4: UK - 27
6: Australia - 26
7: The Netherlands - 24
8: Switzerland - 23
8: Germany - 23
10: France - 22
11: Colombia - 20
12: Slovenia - 14
13: Norway - 13
14: Luxembourg - 12
15: Denmark - 11
15: Russia - 11
15: USA - 11
18: Slovakia - 9
19: Kazakhstan - 8
19: Poland - 8
21: Ecuador, Portugal, Ireland - 4
24: Canada - 3
25: Czechia, Ukraine - 2
27: Lithuania, New Zealand, Sweden, Venezuela, Austria - 1
And yes, I know that you have to weigh victories differently to seconds and thirds in a sober discussion about greatness, but this is still absolutely nuts!
I suppose when a rider one supports threw away a Worlds and a Lombardia win through stupid riding, all that is left is to count the podiums
What is the point of this? I did say that of course wins matter more.
If it isn't the least bit impressive to you that only two other whole countries have obtained more podiums in the biggest races over a 19-year period than Valverde, good for you.
I don't understand what you mean there, I have to say.Tbh I don't think countries are a great metric because the distributions are just weird.
It's cleaner to just rank riders by amount of podiums and he'd be comfortably ahead.
The point of this is that Valverde traded 2 major wins for the smaller risk of not getting the podium. So while the stats are impressive, I would have been more impressed if Valverde reacted immediately to Martin and lost a podium instead of waiting to start the sprint at a safe distance for beating the rest in the group.
Only the top cycling nations are gonna have more than a few riders contribute to that number. For example doing better better than The Netherlands seems really WTF then you realise the highest scoring Dutch rider by this metric is Niki Terpstra with 6 and we have like.I don't understand what you mean there, I have to say.
Only the top cycling nations are gonna have more than a few riders contribute to that number. For example doing better better than The Netherlands seems really WTF then you realise the highest scoring Dutch rider by this metric is Niki Terpstra with 6 and we have like.
Say if you do the same thing for tennis then Djokovic, Federer and Nadal each beat all the other countries combined.
I was also very angry at that time but that's hardly how he has gotten all his podiums...
You can disagree, but to me that was symptomatic of the risk-reward preference that Valverde has which is one of the reasons for the podium record.