Alejandro Valverde: from the slope of his street to the attempted abandonment

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the goodbye of Alexander Valverde as a professional this Saturday in Lombardy (Italy) after two decades of racing led to remembrance important moments to understand why the one from Las Lumbreras de Monteagudo (Murcia) reached so high: the slope where he made his first pedal strokes and the fury that almost drove him out of everything are part of life of El Balawith a museum in his parents’ house.

Valverde will face his last competition today with 133 victories at the highest level, although before that there are many more since he started his phase in the schools and then in the training categories.

In 2002 he made the leap to the professionals with Kelme and eventually passed through the Caisse d’Epargne. In 2010 and 2011 he spent 20 months without competing due to the sanction when he was involved in Operation Puerto for a doping charge, an accusation that was not proven, but he came back stronger and on his return to the road he won as queen. stage of the Tour Down Under in Australia and second overall in that test alongside the winner, local Simon Gerrans.

That was surely the most difficult moment of his career along with the serious fall he suffered in the prologue stage of the 2017 Tour de France, where the patella and talus of the left leg were broken.

After the operation and the long recovery process, the Murcian reappeared and 15 months after the accident he was proclaimed world champion. on the road in the Austrian city of Innsbruck that provides another example of what stability in sport is raised to the maximum exponent.

Only he will know how bad he was and what he had to sacrifice and even when there were hard times, like the time he couldn’t compete. and training every day despite it, I think when he suffered the most was with that crash in the Tour. After many years, we are looking forward to him finishing and being healthy,” his father, Juan, told Efe, appreciating his son’s every success and especially the World Cup four years ago.

He deserved it after winning two silvers and four bronzes, which is also very good. He could have won, but he didn’t because of the circumstances and that’s why when he finally took it he was so happy”, said the one who introduced him to the cycling bug, because he is also a runner though that he started late, at 35 years old.

Juan revealed a conversation he had with Alejandro before that race: “I remember he called me on the phone the other day and I told him that he had no choice but to win, that this was his last chance to do so.. I told him he had to psych himself up to get it and that’s what he did.”

But before that great victory and his many others as a professional, like the Vuelta a España in 2009 and so many stages in the big rounds and in the classics, there was a lot of work and a lot of passion. Otherwise, it would be impossible to get that far.

YOUR FIRST PEDALS

It all started at about 200 meters of the slope of Dámaso Alonso streetnext to the house where his parents still live in Las Lumbreras de Monteagudo, a small population center in the municipality of Murcia with about 4,000 inhabitants.

This is his first track. The asphalt where he is pedaling now is a cobbled terrain, but I am sure that he will also perform well on this surface, like in Paris-Roubaix: “He is almost six years old and he goes up the hill on his bike almost faster than he goes down it and he never gets bored.“, said his father.

In the middle of that steep street is the house of the Valverde Belmonte family, which has been turned into a museum, because a good part of the trophies of Alejandro and his brother Juan Francisco, who also competed, as well as his father, are on shelves and on top of cabinets in various rooms of the house. Even in the kitchen.

There are many cups and not all of them are there, because I have quite a few of Alejandro’s cups at his house in Montepinar, packed in boxes.said John.

Along with the cups and medals, there is no shortage of photographs in the house representing Valverde’s greatest achievements and also his beginnings in schools and with the Azulejos J. Ramos team with those in the habit of making communion or dressed as a vegetable garden

And, of course, there’s room for bicycles, too, including the one he first used as a cadet. “Here are some of the ones he took as well as his children and even some of mineas Pinarello gave me because I asked for it myself once when I accompanied my son to a race in Italy”, says Juan, knowing that he also has a lot to do with what he has been for a number of years. 1 of the International Cycling Union.

I’ll take my truck with Juan Francisco’s bike, Alejandro’s mine and we’ll go to an industrial estate with lights to train.. We got to Orihuela (Alicante) and I remember that one night the two kids stayed for a lap and sprint. When we got to the truck, Juan Francisco told me how hard he had to work so that his brother, who was three years younger than him, wouldn’t beat him. It was there that he saw that he would go far and that is that he has always been very ambitious and has wanted to win,” he recalls.

Very proud of all the dreams that have come true” and without wanting to be vain, he considers his son “the most complete cyclist in Spain and the most regular, because he did not have great successes and failures and started with successes in January and finished the year that also won”.

Maybe someone is destined to try to win the Tour“, pending topic that does not mortgage the brilliant career of El Bala, who before writing so many brilliant pages in the history of cycling was tempted to leave when he was only nine years old.

ATTEMPTED TO PEE AT AGE 9

The father also said this: “His first race was at Jumilla and he was second. A few days later, we went to Yecla and he had won, although he didn’t realize it until he crossed the finish line after a sprint with a boy he called El Lagarto. and he won all the races in his category. After that first test, he said that next time he would finally beat him and a father who heard him asked him. In Yecla they got together again and played it when they arrived. The two, exhausted, fell to the ground and my son, thinking he was defeated again, said he would not run. I had to tell him several times that he won, but he was still confused until he came to his senses. From then on he continued to compete and another kid left him after a few years.”

María, the mother, did not hide that they both “regret” not being able to see Alejandro doing what he loves most.although at the same time he admitted that he was “looking forward to it ending”, because “it’s been many years and sometimes” the parents had a “bad time”.

Whoever brought him into the world recognizes that She was “a rambunctious and cantankerous child” and, like many mothers, she regretted that she was “so thin”.

“When he was young, he was chubby and he loved sweets, but now he takes care of himself, he weighs what he eats and when he comes home, I have white rice and chicken breast ready for him,” he says.

During his children’s birthdays he had not tasted the food on the table and when it was his time he took a break. He had to make many sacrificesbut he is happy and we are with him”, points out María, confident that “from now on he can give the full account of the crumbs in his lumps that he liked so much”.

Source: La Verdad

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