Many years ago, in a place that almost seemed like a distant galaxy, José Miguel Echávarri, discoverer of Miguel Indurain and Pedro DelgadoAmong the long list of Spanish cycling’s past victories was the habit of having dinner with the journalists who would cover the race in the early days of the Vuelta.

In 2003, the meeting took place in a restaurant in Gijón. And from there came the idea to cheer to see who hit the winner of the most stages. The next day – the meeting was no secret – Echávarri is another ancient glory discovered by José Luis Laguía in his own time., then the head of the Kelme community asked how the meal went. And he was told that the innovation was to create a club, but that it would be difficult to find winners. “Put the child to bed every day, I’m sure you’ll be right,” Laguía replied. “Is it a child?” he was asked. “Yes man, Alejandro Valverde.”

Valverde didn’t win all stageswould just be missing but won the 2003 Vuelta’s two main mountain eventsin Envalira and La Pandera. I was just 23 years old.

impressive history

“You will have put it in Valverde”. It was Laguía who called this journalist from the top of Envalira in Andorra. ask if you are successful at the club. The name written on the paper as the winner of the stage that day will be kept as a state secret, and it is even possible not to remember whether he was right or not with the cyclist who will race tomorrow almost 20 years later. Giro de Lombardía, the last great classic of 2022, will hang the bike, Spanish cyclist of all time with an impressive track record, with 133 most victories in total, a disgrace, but above all the most regular of the races he has participated in, because it’s hard to find a runner who always finishes in the top 10 when he decides to race in a three-week race in the last two decades, one or just one day of competition.

His performance speaks for itself: one world championship (plus four silvers and two bronzes), one Vuelta a España, six podiums on the tour of Spain plus one in the Giro and one more in the Tour, four Lièges, five Flechas Walloons, three Vueltas a Catalunya , two Dauphinés, one Itzulia, two San Sebastián Classics, five Vueltas and Andalucía, three Spanish titles…

no leg pain

“Do you know what Valverde’s secret is?” Finally someone who knows the reason for the biker’s eternal youth! This led him to become a runner from his debut in 2002, fighting first with the elderly, then with his own age, and now with the young, who could be almost one of his five children. Óscar Pereiro, winner of the 2006 Tour, discovered the secret. “Alejandro was still very fresh when all our legs ached from the effort.. They never hurt him. How he suffered that day, except when he climbed the Tourmalet on the 2008 Tour. We had to push him, encourage him, and yet he went down hill. But when the pain was gone, what a comeback in Hautacam, where the scene was already over”.

Valverde’s love for the Tour has been talked about many times. He believed that as he would in his farewell between the candidates on Saturday, he always, always, at every stage, always had a French tour in his legs that ensured he was among the victorious candidates. to win. in the classic of dead leaves. Perhaps the list of winners would still be more illustrated if he had separated the Tour from its goals, but it also Valverde wouldn’t be Valverde if he hadn’t made him suffer so much on tourfrom not seeing him always among the competitors, not believing both to himself and to others that he could win a race where he wore yellow only once (2008), where he finished third on the podium in Paris in 2015, but was third on the podium before. He finished seven of the 14 races he ran in the top 10 of the race.

However, it was coach Echávarri who signed him from Kelme to make him a benchmark first for Caisse d’Epargne and then for Movistar, with Eusebio Unzué already at the head of the structure of the Spanish team with the greatest tradition. He has a great love for the Tour as well as for the great classics.

idyll with Liège

The now retired Navarrese coach always remembers the phrase Valverde said to himself when he won the first of four Liège-Bastogne-Liège wins in 2006. “José Miguel seems more important than winning this Tour of Murcia.” And with all due respect to the land that saw the birth of the biker, who in his youth was called El Unbatido, because no one dared to take away a victory, Winning in Liège was like opening the doors to the best international cycling race that year to make a reference ever since. How many one-day races participated?

And if you ask Valverde, who has been interviewed many times with too many anecdotes to fit in all the pages of this paper, what was the happiest day of his life as a cyclist, the answer would take him back. He went to the long Innsbruck sprint with a Romain Bardet who decided to climb into his beard on September 30, 2018, when he became world champion at age 38, although he continues to wonder if he started the sprint too early. Invincible. He raised his left arm and the cry of rage, rage and happiness still resounds in the meadows of the Austrian Alps four years later.

And Valverde is what kept him active during the controversial 2010 suspension, even while training with the Murcia team. when he bikes he comes out to win and will continue to retire anyway.

This Saturday in Lombardy, 42 since April, he will face his farewell. The Last Bullet and he will do it with a longing for success, as he finished second (Augustoni Cup), fourth (Giro de la Emilia) and third (Tres Valles Varesinos) in the three classics he played this week. And then it will continue to connect with Movistar in consultancy and representation work after various exhibition criteria. Who is better than him?