The most awaited début

He has just reached the age of 36 and after a decade and a half as a pro, Alejandro Valverde faces  his debut in the Giro d’Italia with the illusion of a young person, one of his greatest challenges of this 2016. For this reason, his season has been less charged than other times, with few days of competition and a lot of days of specific training, keeping in his mind the great Italian round.

Giro is starting from the Netherlands for the third time in its history, specifically from the city of Apeldoorn, with a 9.8 km individual time trial that will mark the first differences. After two stages of the typical Dutch route with lots of crosses and narrow roads between Arnhem and Nijmegen, the race is returning to Italy to face its first summit finish on Friday 12 in Roccaraso. Then, riders are going to face one of the most important test of this edition: the time trial of 40.5 km in Chianti.

After the second rest day, the race is having a new uphill finish in Sestola, before a last terrible week in which the riders are going to face six hard mountain stages: Cividale del Friuli, Corvara Alta Badia, Alpe di Siusi (TT), Andalo, Risoul and colophon in Sant Anna di Vanadio.

Movistar Team has assembled a great block which is going to support Valverde in his first assault on the Giro, with expert cyclists as Andrei Amador -fourth last year- Giovanni Visconti, Carlos Betancur, José Herrada, José Joaquín Rojas, Rory Sutherland, Javi Moreno or Jasha Sütterlin, the only newcomer in a Grand Tour.

Photo: Movistar Team