MADRID, 8 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish cyclist Alejandro Valverde, retired from professionalism at the end of 2022, finished fourth this Sunday in the men’s event of the Gravel World Championship, which was held in the Italian region of Veneto and in which the Slovenian Matej Mohoric won.
The 43-year-old from Murcia shone in a demanding race in which he managed to compete against some of the best cyclists of the moment and accomplished specialists in the discipline. Thus, he soon stood out alongside some of the runners who would later fight for medals.
Mohoric, the Belgian Florian Vermeersch and the British Connor Swift later managed to open an advantage over a group of six cyclists among whom was Valverde, a gap that became larger as the kilometers passed. Finally, Mohoric was crowned the new world champion by entering the finish line alone.
Meanwhile, Valverde played for fourth place in the sprint against the American Keagan Swenson, one of the greatest specialists in the world of the modality. In this way, he ends up in a ‘Top 10’ that was completed by cyclists such as the Belgians Wout Van Aert -eighth- and Quinten Hermans -sixth- or the current Italian road champion, Simone Velasco -seventh-.
For his part, José María Sánchez, also Spaniard, finished twenty-third, just over fifteen minutes behind the winner. Julen Zubero finished in 54th position; Eduardo Talavera was 58th; Enrique Morcillo, 63rd; Darío Gadeo, 68th; Alberto Losada, 90th and Ferrán Robert, 96th. Iván García Cortina, who suffered a fall, and Sergio Mantecón were unable to finish the test.
In the elite women’s race, Irene Méndez, also from Murcia, was the best national cyclist, finishing in 33rd place after completing the 140 kilometers and just over 1,600 meters of accumulated positive slope just over twenty minutes behind the new world champion, the Polish Katarzyna Niewiadoma. In addition, Guayente Minchot finished 75th, Almudena Montalvo finished 86th and Marta Romeu could not finish due to mechanical problems and a fall.