Two decades after his debut in the great Spanish cycling race, Alejandro Valverde will say goodbye to La Vuelta. It will be the 16th time that the Murcian has started a race where he has accumulated one GC (2009), seven podiums and twelve stage wins. Numbers and performances that make him an essential figure in the development of this race over twenty years.

Marked in red on the 2022 calendar of #LaÚltimaBala, La Vuelta a España will start with three days in the Netherlands, the most importante the team time trial on Friday in Utrecht. Subsequently, as usual in this race, a track full of mountain stages and uphill finishes where the 30-kilometre individual time trial between Elche and Alicante will be very important, very close to his home and where he will have a great support. Although perhaps not as much as the next day, when the race will start from Alhama de Murcia in the last stage as a professional that he will compete in his land.

Valverde will form part of a Movistar Team with Enric Mas and Lluís Mas from the Balearic Islands, José Joaquín Rojas from Cieza, Nelson Oliveira from Portugal, Mathias Norsgaard from Denmark, Carlos Verona from Madrid and Gregor Mülhberger from Austria.