Valverde wins stage 2 at Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana

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Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) took his first victory since fracturing his kneecap at the 2017 Tour de France, winning stage 2 of the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana in Albuixech after he went on the attack with the Astana pair of Jakob Fuglsang and Luis Leon Sanchez on the final climb of the stage and broke Team Sky’s grip on the race.

Valverde led out the sprint to beat Sanchez, with Fuglsang just behind. Giovanni Visconti (Bahrain-Merida) led home the chasers at 19 seconds, with Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) taking fifth. Valverde also took the race lead ahead of Friday’s 30.5km team time trial between Benitatxell and Calpe. He leads Sanchez by 4 seconds, with Fuglsang third at 6 seconds. Wout Poels (Team Sky) is fourth at 29 seconds.

Valverde needed surgery and two months off the bike to recover from his terrible crash at the Tour last July. For many riders, including those much younger than the 37-year-old Spaniard, it would have marked the end of their career. Instead Valverde recovered quickly, hit the gym and stacked up 6,000km of training even before the end of the 2017 season so he could make a rapid return to competition in 2018.

“I'm really happy, it was my first victory after the injury,” Valverde said immediately after hugging his teammates and thanking Fuglsang for working in the attack.

“I have to congratulate my team and Astana, we worked together, it was brilliant. Luis Leon Sanchez is a friend great too. He wanted to win but so did I. In training, I felt good but you never know until you're racing. I was good in Mallorca, but I was careful because the roads were wet. I didn't think I'd get victory here though.”

Valverde was happy to have earned 19 seconds on many of his rivals before the key 30.5km tram time trial to Calpe.

“It's better to have time ahead of the other guys,” he said. “There will be better teams than us in the team time trial, we don't need to take risks its quite a dangerous course. With those 19 seconds we have, whatever we do tomorrow we'll be fighting for the win on Saturday.”

How it happened

The 154km stage from Bétera to Albuixech, north of Valencia, included five categorised climbs, with the last, the category 1 Garbi, coming just 30km from the finish. The peloton knew it could be a day to shape the classification, with the chance to gain some seconds before Friday’s team time trial.

Five riders formed the early break of the day with Bryan Nauleau (Direct Energie), Garikoitz Bravo (Euskadi-Murias), Mathias Van Gompel (Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise), Jesus Alberto Rubio (Inteja Dominican Cycling Team) and Jon Ander Insausti (Team Euskadi) forging clear inside the first 10 kilometres and opening a seven-minute lead over the first climb.

Bravo was eyeing the mountains jersey and swept up as many points as he could on the climbs that dotted the middle of the stage. Behind, LottoNL-Jumbo and Team Sky set the tempo, knowing that the final climb would be important for Van Poppel’s hopes of keeping the race lead or for Team Sky to split the peloton and gain time on some rivals.

On the Puerto de Eslida climb, the fourth of the day at the mid-point of the stage, Ruben Plaza (Israel Cycling Academy) and Andriy Grivko (Astana) accelerated and were joined on the offensive by Alessandro De Marchi (BMC), Preben Van Hecke (Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise), Domen Novak (Bahrain-Merida) and Antonio Molina (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA). However Team Sky were metronomic in their chase and reeled them in before the summit as the gap to the break fell to 2:30.

The Garbi appeared with 30km to go. It is a serious climb, with the road pitching up long before the formal start of the 5.8km ascent. Vasil Kiryienka set his robotic but painful tempo early on for Team Sky and the gap to the break dropped to just above a minute.

Sky then stayed in control with first Michal Kwiatkowski and then Diego Rosa taking over the pace. It was enough to crack Van Poppel, who was dropped with over a kilometre to go to the summit, and they proceeded to sweep up the break of the day. Eventually only 20 or so riders could hold Sky’s pace.

However, not everyone was willing to let Sky dominate affairs and Fuglsang attacked on the steepest part of the climb as the summit approached. Valverde produced a ferocious acceleration to surge across to the Dane. Suddenly the race was on and Sanchez dived down the descent to turn the duo into a trio.

They opened a 12-second gap and Sky and the rest tried to chase, but the attackers were more determined and the gap gradually extended to 30 seconds.

Poels, Rosa, David De La Cruz and Gianni Moscon were all there for Sky in the chasing group, with Roman Kreuziger (Mitchelton-Scott), Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) and Alexis Vuillermoz (AG2R La Mondiale) other big names. They sent teammates to the front with Brent Bookwalter and De La Cruz doing big turns, but the trio up ahead were working smoothly together and the gap failed to fall sufficiently for a regrouping.

As the kilometres ticked down it was clear the three would stay clear. It was two against one in favour of Astana, but Valverde always likes his chances even as an underdog. He waited carefully in the final kilometres, allowing Fuglsang to lead into the finishing straight, but then opened his sprint early to ensure that Sanchez would have no chance of passing him.

Seven months after his nasty crash on the opening day of the Tour, Valverde was back on top and in the leader’s yellow jersey at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, a race he previously won in 2004 and 2007.

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