Despite retiring from road cycling after Il Lombardia 2022, and as he always proved during his professional road cycling career,
Alejandro Valverde is an insatiable rider. Throughout 2023, the Spaniard has been training very hard to face the next big goal of his life, the World
Gravel Tour of Italy.
This has been advanced by the colleagues of AS. Valverde wants to be part of the lineup for the next World Gravel World Championships to be held in October. So far, the preparation behind him is more than positive, as he himself has confirmed in his most recent statements.
"I'm still adapting to this discipline," said Alejandro Valverde. "The truth is that at the beginning it cost me a lot, but with time I've been gaining confidence and I'm doing better. I train the same way, and if one day I wake up and I want to push myself to the limit, I do it. In July I reached 20,000 kilometers of training alone in 2023".
Valverde earned his ticket to the World Championships, which will be held in a month and a half, on October 7, after winning the two UCI races he contested on Spanish soil this year. "The World Championships are there, participating is the idea. I'm still training on the road bike, that's for sure. When there is a little more than a week before the competition is when I change bikes," Valverde concludes about his preparation for the World Championships.
The first edition of the World Gravel Championships was held in 2022. There, the champion's title went to Gianni Vermeesch, after finishing a very long breakaway of 140 kilometers, and where Mathieu van der Poel was third.
