Movistar's Alejandro Valverde won the first stage of the Ruta del Sol Wednesday in Granada. The 36-year-old Spaniard triumphed in a six-man sprint ahead of Team Sky's Wout Poels and Sebastian Reichenbach (FDJ) at the end of a mountainous 155km day of racing in southern Spain.
Valverde attempted to solo clear of a select group going up and over the final climb of the day, but he adjusted his plan after being caught on the descent, taking a convincing win in the sprint.
"We couldn't have started things off in a better way. For the time being, we've got a stage win - everything that comes after this is a gift for us," Valverde said.
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"We knew that Contador would be doing well, and he showed he was willing to fight when his team started to take the reigns of the peloton without asking anyone to help them out. He played his cards and really made the difference, yet we defended ourselves well. When we were the two of us alone at the front, it was complicated to keep pushing because his attacks left no room to breathe. Plus, there was a group with three Sky riders pulling, which made it difficult to escape.
"At the end, I decided to give it a try myself into the last slope and I opened a bit of a gap, but it was difficult to make it grow and finish solo, so I chose to wait for Ion and Alberto, who were coming close behind. I was keeping in mind that I was the fastest into such a field sprint, and at the end it was a good result for us - it's the win that counts here."
Berden De Vries (Roompot - Nederlandse Loterij), Georg Preidler (Team Sunweb), Daniel Turek (Israel Cycling Academy), Florian Senechal (Cofidis, Solutions Crédits), Tosh Van der Sande (Lotto Soudal), Pablo Torres Muiño (Burgos BH) and Kirill Sveshnikov (Gazprom-Rusvelo) formed the day's main early escape group shortly after the peloton set out from Málaga.
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