Alejandro Valverde about the 2017 Tour de France: "It was the most painful thing in my career"
Cycling
There is no doubt that Alejandro Valverde is one of the best cyclists in the history of Spain. 'El Bala' won the hearts of most fans. His way of racing and competing made everyone who was able to enjoy him in his prime fall in love with him.
Today, Valverde competes in gravel races. At the same time, he combines his activity with that of being the Spanish coach (recently appointed), and ambassador of Movistar Team. In the little free time he has, the Spanish cyclist has granted a long exclusive interview to the French media, Vélofuté.
In it, Alejandro Valverde talked about interesting topics. Among them he mentioned his victory at the Innsbruck World Championships as the best victory of his career. He also talked about his biggest regrets, such as the 2017 Tour de France, where he had to abandon in the first stage due to a crash.
"The 2017 Tour de France was the most painful for me. I was in top form and the race was going very well for me. I saw myself doing great things, but I crashed and abandoned the first day, which was very hard," Valverde said during the interview with the French media outlet.
At 45 years old, Alejandro Valverde still refuses to hang up his bike altogether. As mentioned, he continues to compete (and win) in gravel races. In the last of these, the Castellón Gravel Race, he took the win in dominant fashion.
During the interview, he also talked about his secret to longevity: "In the end, the secret is my passion. It's not hard to stay in the elite when you really enjoy it and it doesn't take a lot of work."
In fact, he retired from road cycling at a high level: "When I retired from road cycling at the age of 42, I finished in the Top 5 in the last three or four races I did in Italy, so my level was still quite high. But at the end of the day, it's 20 years, there has to be a beginning and an end," he added.
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- would have been nice to hear exactly WHY he thinks pog has zero chance in some greater detail. i mean, tend to agree that his chances aren’t GREAT, but some explanation from the expert with an opinion would be nice. MINE is that, in spite of the recon he did where tadej concluded that the course “wasn’t that hard” i think that doing the full route at full gas is really going to beat up pogacar’s 145lb body, to a degree that he maybe isn’t expecting. but hey, we’ll see in a couple weeks. like everyone else, i do think it’s supercool that he’s going.OCexile01-04-2025
- Go back to that era and look at the lousy mechanicals he's had at Paris-Roubaix. Take those away, maybe he has another Monument, Van der Poel has one less, and suddenly all the rules change. Those mechanicals preceded his awful crashes - and you're right, that Tour was amazing. Ventoux, TT, and Champs-Elysees?! Something that Pogacar and Van der Poel can't do, just Wout. It still amazes me.RidesHills01-04-2025
- Oh, the impossibility of this kind of comparison. A pre-WW2 Binda had amazing statistics, and that was one era. During what I think of as the romantic era, Poulidor had an incredible run at the Tour without winning, and Bobet won some grand tours and some Monuments. In this modern era (for me: after Hinault), we've had multiple Monument winners win a grand tour (such as Valverde and Kelly, with Kelly the better rider in general), and then we've got someone like Roglic, the true GC rider. Sure there was a Monument that was kind of a fluke (both Pogacar and Hirschi might have won, and twitchy Alaphilippe deserved relegation), but what matters are the 5 grand tours and all these wins across the 1 week GC races except for the Tour de Suisse (you'd think he'd race it to get the set of them all). In this era, since 2000 or so, maybe he meets the description as best non-Tour winner. How many GC riders have these wins and not the Tour? To compare to other eras really is not possible. He's his own unique rider, and it's been amazing watching him for the past many years. That's about all we can say.RidesHills01-04-2025
- Ease up on a brother!bobo01-04-2025
- Primoz finds ways to win. Too bad he'll never take Tour de France.awp01-04-2025
- I don't think I would ever count Wout van Aert out of a race if his head is in it. He is a serious talent.awp01-04-2025
- He's a great rider for sure, not sure if he the best to never win the Tour though.awp01-04-2025
- Hard to imagine that his confidence - that imperious flow state that great athletes operate in - hasn't been affected. But that is a different dynamic than the one you described. He has not become hesitant because he is fixated on his rival. He has suffered multiple traumatic injuries, and I have no doubt he is still 1% off both mentally and physically as a result. Football (both kinds) and basketball players who blow out knees go through a predictable cycle in which they are reluctant to do max efforts even after their doctors have cleared them. I myself went though a small version of that after a back injury. It's just hard once you no longer know where the line is. We saw in his TT a couple weeks ago that he still has power, and for all the hand wringing he is still finishing in the top 10-20 of big races. But as we have seen with others, getting *all* the way back is not assured. I'm not ready to say he is done, but few riders who have been hurt as often and as badly as him remain at the top.MidnightRider01-04-2025
- It’s quite a limited sport when it comes to stories, they have to try to make news.Mistermaumau31-03-2025
- But you yourself are agreeing the crashing affected his psyche, or is that just me getting the wrong impression?Mistermaumau31-03-2025