Almost every time trial I ever did the voice in my head said "this is a stupid sport and shouldn't hurt so much". Fortunately it went away a little bit down the road but 2-4km is the worst.
Again, I kid. We are way too deep into psychological analysis of these guys. I can't imagine how much physical and mental fatigue affects what you do after 3 weeks. We'd need to get 6 beers into Dumo along with some Amsterweed to get the truth.
There's one other issue here, which appears to be unique to Valverde. The team has said multiple times in the past they can't get a read on how Valverde will do a TT until he's on course and then they get a read very early on, as in the first 5 km. They've said anyone they've ever had on the team they know before they start the TT if it's going to be decent, good, poor, but with him they've never been able to get a read and he's always been a very inconsistent TTer although usually not that bad.
Dumo or Cancellara, or maybe both?