276 days after his last victory at Liège-Bastogne-Liège and 215 days since his serious crash on stage one of the 2017 Tour de France, Alejandro Valverde got back to winning ways today. The Spaniard won the second stage of the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana and took over the race lead in the process.
Valverde put in a strong attack on Alto del Garbí and sprinted home ahead of Astana team-mates Luis Leon Sanchez and Jakob Fuglsang to win the 154-kilometre stage from Bétera to Albuixech.
The Movistar rider split the main group with a brutal acceleration with two kilometres before the summit of Garbí, the final Cat-1 ascent of today’s route, 31km from the finish and crested it alongside Fuglsang, and a handful of seconds ahead of a peloton from which Luis León Sánchez jumped across on the descent.
Despite furious attempts by Sky and BMC to bring the gap down, the trio reached the finishing straight together with Valverde putting in a superb sprint for his 109th pro victory.
The pursuit group crossed the line 19 seconds behind, which means that Valverde leads Sanchez by 4″, Fuglsang by 6″ and has 29″ on the other main contenders before the decisive weekend of this year’s Volta. Friday will bring a likely decisive team time trial, 23km from Poble Nou de Benitatxell to Calpe, before Saturday’s stage on a brutal route before the finish atop the Alto de Las Canteras (Cocentaina).
Alejandro Valverde: “At the Garbí climb I was feeling like I had good legs and decided to attack, profiting from the fact that Fuglsang had moved meters before. Luisle bridged back into the downhill and we really got on well with each other afterwards. That good cooperation and the fact that we three were all strong riders made it possible to reach the finish, even if Sky and other squads pushed with all they had. Surprised? Well, I was feeling great training before the first races, and last week in Mallorca I saw I was on the pace of the strongest ones and knew that it’d be possible to try and win a stage here. I got this chance and didn’t want to wait for another one – the sooner the better.
“It makes me so, so happy to get this victory after everything I had to go through during the last few months. The seconds we put on the rest today might become decisive, too. It’s not a bad TTT for us tomorrow, but it’s a dangerous one, so we must stay focused as well as cautious, trying to lost not too much time so we can stand a chance on Saturday. Let’s see what we can do after today’s win and tomorrow’s result.”
