Four weeks after taking his best ever Tour de France performance, Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) became the first of the top overall contenders to triumph in this year’s Vuelta a Espana with a powerful uphill stage win at Vejer de la Frontera.
Often criticised for miscalculating his manouvres, Valverde has barely missed a beat this year in uphill finishes, taking a superb double Ardennes triumph on the Mur de Huy in la Fleche Wallonne and again in Liege-Bastogne-Liege.
Vejer de la Frontera’s rollercoaster finale was far less well-known, but in its own way no less tricky to handle than the Belgian Classics' final climbs. And after taking Fleche and Liege for a third time this spring, the Movistar veteran proved he was equally spot on four months later when it came to making his last uphill acceleration on the searingly hot, steep ascent in southern Spain, beating Peter Sagan to the line in the process.
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“I knew it was a good stage for me, but I had to keep calm and not waste any energy because there is a long way to go in this Vuelta,” Valverde said.
“I knew that Peter Sagan [Tinkoff-Saxo, stage winner on Monday] would be a really dangerous rival. His team were working during the stage and that was a clear sign of how confident he felt.”
“But once I saw the 200-metres-to-go banner and how things were looking, I felt sure I could win.” He had not panicked, he said, when Nicolas Roche (Team Sky) had gone on the attack with Samuel Sánchez (BMC Racing). “It was all under control.”
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