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What a show!

Alejandro Valverde has closed in the best possible way his successful cycling week in Volta a Catalunya: winning the final stage to confirm the triumph in his first World Tour race of the season. Valverde has succeeded an overwhelming balance sheet, which includes three stage wins, the victory in mountain, points and teams classification and, certainly, the white jersey with green stripes that identifies the winner of the general of the the oldest race on the Spanish calendar.

Valverde has surpassed the Colombian Jarlinson Pantano (Trek) and the French champion Arthur Vichot (FDJ) in the always complicated circuit of Montjuic. In the general, the rider from Movistar Team has beaten Alberto Contador (Trek) with a difference of 1’03” and the youngster Marc Soler, the real revelation of this race.

Quotes: “To be honest, I wasn’t expecting to get these results. I knew I was in good condition leading up to this race, and those final training rides with Rojas and my team-mates in Andorra the week prior did good on me, but you had to keep in mind that I had spent a whole month without racing, since the Vuelta a Andalucía, while some other rivals like Alberto had a better racing pace. My plan was to go day-by-day, without setting my sights on the bigger goals, but my legs got better and better through the race, even more so today. The Volta is a race that I really like, and every time I take the start here is with an aim to do things well. My five team-mates were superb, and I don’t want to forget about Castroviejo and Amador, who had to abandon with illness yet still did great while they could. We proved we were the strongest team at the TTT, and I tried to continue chasing victories to repay the whole squad after their fantastic effort on Tuesday and ever since.”

Photo: Movistar Team