david valero He lost several positions in the world mountain bike rankings, where he went from third to sixth place after the World Championship, where he had to move up almost 50 positions after experiencing a mechanical problem on the first lap, which resulted in his believed that he could be “happy” with his performance and assumed that “it sometimes happens in sport”.
The Spanish champion, in statements to EFE, told how he experienced this “strange” situation in the sport “because you can predict many things, but not a specific part of the shoe that will break.”
Shortly after starting he suffered a “hook” in the Chilean Martin Vidaurre and the Spaniard saw how a piece of his shoe broke off, causing it to no longer fit the pedal and forcing him to walk nearly an entire lap “pedaling with only one foot,” he recounted.
In addition, he has detailed, “near where it happened is the second technical zone, but there he did not leave spare shoes” because “it is something you do not expect to happen” because ” sometimes the closures are broken, but like there You can pedal with two, but it’s not normal to go wrong” where “I had to go with only one pedal in the technical area of the finish line, if where I changed my shoes” when I was in 69th place.
Valero Until last week he was the third cyclist in the world ranking – and he was number one before – because he chose to stop competing in order to prepare for the World Cup in Scotland as much as possible.
That is why the man from Granada assumes that “to think that a race is the most important of the year and to go out like this is very angry” although “I think I showed later that I have the speed to stay in the top ten and then we’ll see how the race ends”, where he was ranked 24th at the end.
So, he was left with the ability to think that “there is still time left in the calendar to try to finish well” especially in the World Cup, whose calendar starts again in ten days in Andorra.
Now Valero is ninth overall in the World Cup and so he set himself the first goal of “staying in the top ten” and “scoring points for the world ranking” not only for him, to stay close to the top positions, but because those scores will help Spain attend the Olympic Games in Paris with three representatives.
The Andalusian cyclist is one of the signatories of a statement of protest against the decision of the International Cycling Union that allowed three riders (Vander Poel, Sagan and Pidcock) to start the race later than they should have, with the particularity that the third was declared the world champion.
“It’s something that no one likes,” said Valero, referring to colleagues with whom he regularly competes in his specialty (the other three do not) “and we all have goals to meet and teams that’s investing in us And that’s something you should respect.”
For him it was a “simple” question because “I can’t go to the organization of the Tour de France, say I want to participate and I want to be ahead of the others”.
“On Sunday, in the World Cup, it is true that those of us in the top thirty were not affected, but, for example, my teammates were and many more, and for many of them finishing in the top twenty is a great goal , enough to get three cyclists ahead of you.”
He does not doubt Pidckock’s success, “that he is a good runner” and that “last year he came out of the last places and finished fourth” something that could show that “starting later makes the race situation easier “.
Source: La Verdad
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