Dismissed Spanish national coach invites Alejandro Valverde to take over his role and offers his services to Movistar: "You have my phone number"
Cycling
National coach of Spain Pascual Momparler was removed from his function at the end of 2024. The 42-year-old joined the Spanish National team in 2013, starting with the juniors. He gradually moved up the ranks and spent the past six years as elite men's coach.
After some disappointing results, Momparler was dismissed from his position by José Vicioso, new president of the RFEC: "Now it's time to step aside and let someone else come in," said the former national coach to MARCA.
This has not prevented Pascual Momparler from giving his opinion on who should replace him. He can imagine Alejandro Valverde taking up a role within the Federation: "He is a great cyclist who, as a coach, can transform the dynamics of the national team. I hope he plugs in like in his best days and continues to give us joy," he said of the 2018 World champion.
However, Valverde is formally linked to Movistar Team on whose behave he competes on gravel besides other smaller tasks around the team. Momparler believes that it's possible to combine both jobs. "It's something that can be separated well if there is a desire to do so. He can perfectly leave a Movistar cyclist at home to take another from Kern Pharma or whatever, if necessary" he said.
But he did not rule out another option, to avoid conflicts of interest: "If not, Valverde should take a step forward and disassociate himself from the team to start a new personal project," he emphasized.
Regarding his time as national coach, he commented: "When I started, the federation was at its worst financial moment and, despite the difficulties, we achieved remarkable results," referring to Ivan Romeo's U23 ITT title this year and a number of top-10 results among elites.
Finally, he Momparler lets Movistar know that he is available as a possible replacement for Alejandro Valverde if he really ends up leaving the structure: "Eusebio has an empty spot. He has my phone number. I've already talked to him a little bit. In the future anything can happen," Momparler concluded.
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- Correct. Jorgenson is a great rider. He has a big tank and could be a GT winner himself at some point.awp04-01-2025
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- Well, as far as I know, they’re also not being treated like criminals but they need to accept that for a whole bunch of people they are just as bad as drug users or dealers, tax cheats and frauds. We are talking of people who deliberately used products knowing they could get punished and banned within their activity. It’s the equivalent of drugs in society and in that sense they get away pretty lightly when you consider the consequences of that, without even considering places where that gets you life or maybe even death. Cycling has come to the point where NO-ONE can claim not to know what might happen if you dope so if you still decide to take that risk you deserve the consequences, and it shows you must be desperate and cycling for the wrong reasons.Mistermaumau04-01-2025
- The check is in the mail....northcarolinaeric04-01-2025
- Considering his schedule and the fact he seemed to feel ok initially, I could imagine they didn’t rush it but probably now they have. I mean, even though he half impaled himself on the rod, he rode on to win in typical Mathieu style. Like he said, the pain got worse over the days so initially he probably thought nothing of it.Mistermaumau04-01-2025
- Yes, if Kuss (also a GT winner lest we forget, the same one) is back in form though, he’ll be lead domestique, Yates will be the domestique’s domestique and Jorgensen will do the relay between the two. Jonas will be on Tadej’s wheel somewhere else ;-) Guess we won’t be seeing any brothers escaping together anymore now.Mistermaumau04-01-2025
- lol they pass the SD Worx team at 4:00 in the video and Demi Vollering's (I think it's her...) jaw drops when she realises it's Jonas.Pogboom04-01-2025
- You dont need to be best at everything if you get a gap of 2-5 minutes over the other riders in the area of strengths overcoming the losses due to the weakness even if the other riders know your weaknessabstractengineer04-01-2025
- Your sentence makes no sense.verve82504-01-2025
- Yates is a GT winner, he will be a big part of setting the pace in he high mountains just like Kuss has done in previous years. He is a big name for Visma.awp04-01-2025