Valverde's Worlds win was anything but a surprise, says coach

At 38, Alejandro Valverde is the second oldest winner in history of the World Championships elite men’s road race. The Spaniard had looked to be on the back foot in the final week of the Vuelta a España and until Sunday in Innsbruck he held the all-time record for podium finishes in the Worlds without actually netting gold.

But Mikel Zabala, the Movistar coach overseeing Valverde’s training throughout the season, believes that the victory in Innsbruck, which saw the veteran finally break through a glass ceiling that has been resisting him for 15 years, was definitely on the cards before Sunday.

"He’s had an exceptional season this year and the Vuelta a España this year was very good for him too," Zabala told Cyclingnews.

"It was an exceptionally fast Vuelta in the high mountains, this year, as hotly disputed as the Tour de France. Even so, he was up there still fighting for the win, with two days to go, and taking on riders ranging from Peter Sagan in the uphill sprints to Simon Yates on the climbs. So it was anything but a surprise for me."

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Despite Valverde’s advanced years, the wins keep on coming. He may have lost out at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, one of his big targets of the season, but he has nevertheless racked up 14 victories this year, including the Abu Dhabi Tour, the Volta a Catalunya, and two stages in the Vuelta a España. According to procyclingstats.com, Valverde’s total of 122 wins is now just two short of the all-time Spanish record of 124, held by 1970s all-rounder Txomin Perurena.

Zabala agreed with Cyclingnews that Sunday’s route bore marked similarities with La Flèche Wallonne, where Valverde holds the all-time record total of five victories, as well as with the Ardennes Classics in general. Valverde has been a reference point in such races since his first Ardennes Weekend double back in 2006, which came prior to his 2010 suspension for his implication in the Operación Puerto blood doping investigation. Valverde returned to competition at the start of the 2012 season.

Like Flèche Wallonne, the 2018 Worlds course’s final ascent was short and brutally steep, preceded by a series of longer, draggy climbs, in some ways reminiscent of the côtes of Liege-Bastogne-Liege – ascents which, on Sunday, hollowed out the weaker riders from the pack, but which still saw around 50 riders at the foot of the Innsbruck ‘wall'.

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