The first goals of 2017
Movistar Team has unveiled the itinerary of the first part of the season for its two great leaders, Alejandro Valverde and Nairo Quintana. Valverde is opening the year in the Challenge de Mallorca, a test that releases the calendar of races in Spain, where Valverde added his last win in 2015 in Trofeo Serra de Tramuntana. Later, he is continuing with his set-up in races that he knows well: Vuelta a Murcia, Clásica de Almería and Vuelta a Andalucía. In the first one, he has accumulated four triumphs and was second last year; while in Andalusia he has imposed himself in four of the last five editions.
Valverde’s debut in the World Tour calendar will take place in Paris-Nice, a race in which he has two stage wins but in which he has not participated since 2012, when he finished third in the overall. The only doubt of this first part of the calendar is that Movistar Team and Valverde haven’t decided yet to go to Volta Catalunya or to Vuelta al País Vasco. In this way, Valverde will close this stretch of 2017 running the Amstel Gold Race, La Fleche Wallonne (current winner and recordman with four wins) and the Liège (three wins). Tour de France and Vuelta a España await in the second half of the season.