Alejandro Valverde (Movistar Team) took the honours on stage two of the Vuelta a España after winning the sprint atop the Alto de Guadalhorce ahead of former World Road Race champion Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky).

Valverde’s team mates, including Imanol Erviti, Daniele Bennati, Andrey Amador and Nelson Oliveira kept the pace high in the closing 40 kilometres of the challenging 163-kilometre from Marbella to Caminito del Rey, which resulted in a reduced peloton of just 40 riders starting the decisive 5-kilometre climb to the finish.

A move with less than two kilometres to go by Laurens de Plus (Quick Step Floors) put a number of riders under pressure but Valverde kept his cool and an acceleration with 600 metres remaining saw only Kwiatkowski able to stay on his wheel. Valverde then managed to beat the Polish champion in the sprint to claim his tenth career stage success in La Vuelta.

Stage one winner Rohan Dennis (BMC Racing Team) finished over thirteen minutes down to lose the leader’s jersey. Kwiatkowski has now taken over the leader’s red jersey with Valverde in second place at 14″ and Wilco Kelderman (Team Sunweb) in third at 25″.

Alejandro Valverde: Surprised? I am, but I’m not at the same time. I knew my legs were going to do well here. After the Tour de France, I tried to rest up as much as I could, spent a lot of time on flat roads next to the coastline in Murcia, trying to stay focused but calm and relaxed at the same time, making the right form come to me and hoping to progress over the next three weeks here in La Vuelta. The progress I followed throughout August has been proven to be the right one with this victory.

“Before the start, we already had clear instructions of going to the front with the whole team into the final circuit, because there were dangerous, narrow zones where you had to take over if you didn’t want to get caught out of position. The heat really hurt many people, I was surprised to see so many riders dropping back though. Hearing on the radio that real contenders for this win were getting out of contention, we were more motivated about seeking for this victory.

“I knew the biggest rival for today was ‘Kwiato’, but couldn’t wait to just launch the sprint because De Plus was ahead of us. I waited until the last 550-600 metres, thinking about having to go on one long attack through the last few turns.

“I think I timed that first effort well; Kwiatkowski was like one metre behind after my move, and you could see he had taken a big effort to follow my wheel. I let him overtake me because the last turn right, because I knew that the final slopes gave me a chance to go past, and once we were on that final straight, I just launched my sprint to come out on top.”

Photo: Luis Angel Gomez/BettiniPhoto©2018

“For the time being, we’ve already got a victory, and achieved one of the goals I had in mind coming into this Vuelta. The Tour de France just didn’t go as I expected. I didn’t feel my legs as I wanted them to. I was also eager to score a victory after two months, and coming back to winning ways in La Vuelta after missing last year’s race.

“La Vuelta – I love the race. The Giro is nice. The Tour is nice. However, the Vuelta is my race. I’m a Spaniard. I love it. We’ve got off to a great start, and it’s day-by-day for us again after this.

“Any GC plans? I don’t rule myself out of contention at all, since I’ve shown I’m doing great and we’re just getting started, but our only leader has to be Nairo, and I can’t say I’ll stay focused at every single stage not to lose time, 100%, because it just doesn’t work like that for me in this race. There are other goals in mind. And if Nairo needs me to work for him because he’s in a position to win the Vuelta outright, I won’t hesitate to offer him a hand.”

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