Following his first victory of the 2022 season at the Challenge Mallorca, Alejandro Valverde has said that he's surprised to still be winning at the age of 41 at the start of what will be his final season in the professional peloton.
Valverde turned pro two decades ago in the 2002 season for Kelme and has won a race in every year of his career barring his neo-pro season, the 2011 season when he was banned for doping, and 2020.
The win at the Trofeo Pollença-Port d'Andratx – ahead of Brandon McNulty and Aleksandr Vlasov – was the 131st of his career. He acknowledged that competing at the same high level 20 years into his career has been difficult to achieve.
"More than age, for me the key thing is that it's already 20 years for me at the highest level in the pro peloton," Valverde said after the race.
"It's something so difficult to achieve, both physically and especially on the psychological standpoint, I'm really surprised to continue doing well. When I was younger, I stated that I thought I wouldn't be in the peloton when I reached 34 – now I'm turning 42 in April, and I'm still racing, and winning."
Valverde is set to target the Ardennes Classics as well as the Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España this season and will next head to the Vuelta a la Comunitat Valenciana, a race he won in 2007 and also finished second at two years ago.
He said that every race this season will be a tribute, and thanked the organisers of the Challenge Mallorca – where he has won five times before Saturday – for honouring him at the start of the race.
"To me, every race will be a tribute already. I'm really thankful to the organisers for the recognition they gave me this morning at the start – I hope I was able to pay them back and thank them enough with this win. It's the best way to bid farewell to this race, with two podiums, one victory – and now I'm already thinking about Valencia, the next one!"
"I want to dedicate this victory to two really important men," he added. "The first one is Egan Bernal. All of my support goes out to him, hoping that his recovery goes well and we can see him doing fine as soon as possible.
"And then, to Juan Carlos Unzué [brother of Movistar manager Eusebio]. His example of strength, optimism, fighting spirit over the last few months has been invaluable, to everyone in this team particularly. A big hug goes to both, hoping that we can see each other soon."
His win atop the steep climb in Andratx came after a day's worth of work from his Movistar team and a plan that looked to be executed perfectly throughout the hilly 170-kilometre race. Teammates Enric Mas and Marc Soler had attacked at various points to help whittle the peloton down, and on the final climb it was Mas, Iván Sosa, and Einer Rubio who did the work on the front before Valverde launched to yet another victory.
"The whole team was excellent today," he said afterwards. "We tried to keep the race always as much under control as possible, and the team worked perfectly well. We had to tackle this Andratx climb at a strong pace to try and drop those faster legs still into the group.
"We succeeded at distancing Matthews, the strongest sprinter in the group, but I saw him trying to come back with 250, 300 meters to go, and that's where I launched my sprint before he bridged back – and I could manage to take it."
