"Did you make a mistake in Florence? No" - Joaquim Rodríguez on losing 2013 world title to Rui Costa

The 2013 Florence World Championships remain one of the races that can't be explained by a single image. It isn’t enough to watch the finale or isolate the last decisive move. Joaquim Rodríguez has broken down the race that shaped part of his career on his YouTube channel, dissecting an event that, for him, was decided long before the final phase. A Worlds race where Rui Costa ended up outfoxing the Catalan and Alejandro Valverde.

'Purito' always says a race like this has to be understood as a whole. It doesn’t start on the last climb or get decided only with the final acceleration. It starts from kilometer zero, when the bunch is still together but an invisible battle is already underway.

“People need context. For me, the race splits into three zones.” From the outset, the Catalan stresses a key aspect: positioning. At a Worlds, he explains, you can’t afford to ride chaotically if you are one of the marked names. Every poorly placed meter is paid for later, when there’s no room to make it back.

“If you’re a leader, you have to be well placed to avoid the whiplash, to prevent a split, so you don’t have to chase too much, especially early, because you must save plenty for the end.”

The opening kilometers are no formality. They’re a terrain of constant control, where national teams test each other without laying all their cards on the table. It’s when the break forms and, with it, one of the day’s most important decisions.

“Roughly around kilometre 15, 20, 25 the break usually goes.” That’s where a balancing act begins among the teams aiming to win the Worlds. It’s not just about letting riders go, but watching who slips up the road. Purito explains it from the perspective of someone who often lined up as a favourite.

“You try to prevent any other team that wants to contest—Liquigas with Vincenzo in our case, Valverde with Movistar—from getting someone in the break, because otherwise you’ll be the one forced to work.”

Putting a rider up the road is no minor gesture. It’s a future investment. If you don’t, you accept a workload that, in such a long and hard race, can prove decisive. “Or if you put someone in there, you save yourself work at the end. In this case, we didn’t put anyone in.”

That detail shapes how the Worlds unfolds. From there, the race moves into a second phase where the terrain starts to bite and the margin for error shrinks to nothing. “Then you wait for the second part, which is usually in a very hard zone. One hundred to go, a very hard zone.”

Florence offered no rest, with the circuit having two difficult climbs and very rainy weather that also made the descents very dangerous. The route tightens while there’s still a long way to go, forcing riders to spend energy earlier than planned. Its difficulty isn’t just in the numbers, but in the constant tension to stay in position.

“Very hard and such a stressful fight to get in there, for the reasons we always mention.” At that point, Purito sketches a scene that captures how the race thinned out. A quick scan around, a snapshot of the front group, and the sense that many favourites were already out of place.

“We Katusha riders arrived there, and I looked around the top twenty—our eight guys—and I couldn’t see any leaders around me. And I kept looking and thinking 'damn, this one’s gone, that one too'.

The pace set early turned the Worlds into a race without pauses. There was no time to reorganise or recover what was lost. Everything moved too fast. “It was pretty quick that day. We didn’t have anyone in the break. The break wasn’t very far, either.”

Each of those factors stacked up fatigue, forced decisions, and knife-edge situations. Florence became an endurance contest where the winner isn’t always the strongest, but the one who best managed the entire day.

Over time, the 2013 Worlds has been analysed from many angles. Yet when Purito is asked directly about that race, his answer leaves no room for doubt or public regret. “Did you make a mistake in Florence? No.”

The Spaniard attacked in the final kilometers but was later on caught by Rui Costa. What was unusual is that in the small chasing group in which only Vincenzo Nibali joined them, Alejandro Valverde did not follow Costa's attack in the final flat section.

This mistake saw Costa catch Rodríguez and then sprint to the win, whilst Valverde sprinted to third behind. The tactical disaster by the Spanish saw both of their riders finish on the podium but miss out on the victory in Florence.