To understand how unusual Alejandro Valverde is, you could compare him with another child of 1980 who has been equally prolific as a winner, with 122 victories to Valverde's 106 to date: Tom Boonen.
Valverde and Boonen's cycling universes were so different that they rarely overlapped, even though they both turned pro in 2002. Valverde's natural territory is the hills, while Boonen's was the cobbles, although they did occasionally cross swords. The most memorable occasion was in 2005 when Boonen outsprinted the Spaniard for gold in the World Championships in Madrid. And after 15 years of pedalling along parallel career paths, one particular weekend this April proved significant for both of them.
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For Boonen, the red-letter Sunday came when he pulled down the curtain on his career in the Roubaix velodrome, following a respectable but fairly unremarkable final Classics swansong, garnering one low-key win in the Vuelta a San Juan to maintain his record of at least a win a season since 2002.
Valverde's red-letter Saturday came when, on the eve of Boonen's farewell race, he won the Vuelta al País Vasco for the first time in his career, bringing his victory count for 2017 to nine. "My best spring ever," was his own analysis at the time, and you'd be hard pushed to disagree. It's been extraordinary: he's won the Vuelta a Murcia, a stage and the GC of the Ruta del Sol, three stages and the GC at the Volta a Catalunya and a stage and the GC in the Basque Country. Following that, he won Flèche and Liège.
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