MADRID, 7 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish cyclist Alejandro Valverde (Movistar Team) will put an end to his sports career this Saturday with the dispute of the prestigious Giro de Lombardía, the last ‘monument’ of the season and which will feature a high-level participation led by the Danish Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) and the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar (UAE).
Two decades after becoming a professional, the Murcian will compete for the last time at the age of 41, in search of having the best possible farewell and fighting for what would be his 134th victory. A resume full of successes, with victories in classics, in ‘big’ and in the World Cup, which will write its last page in the ‘Classic of dead leaves’, in honor of the recent arrival of autumn.
The cyclist from Las Lumbreras has been competing on Italian soil for many days and is surely getting his best form for this Giro de Lombardía, where, as happened in the Vuelta a España, he will share farewell honors with another great figure such as the Italian Vincenzo Nibali (Astana), which also keeps the competition bike.
Thus, before facing this ‘monument’, Valverde has ridden the Coppa Agostini, the Giro dell’Emilia and the Tre Valli Varesine, signing good results with second, fourth and third place, respectively. ‘Il Lombardia’ has resisted him in his career, despite the fact that he has three second places in 2013, 2014 and 2019.
Precisely, the rival who beat him nine years ago, Joaquim Rodríguez, is the last national winner of this event in which the Movistar Team wants to shine again after the victories of Enric Mas in the Giro dell’ Emilia and Iván García Cortina in the Great Piedmont.
The Spaniard, in good form, and the Asturian will accompany him in this dismissal along with two other faithful squires such as Imanol Erviti and José Joaquín Rojas. The Spanish Jorge Arcas and the Swiss Johan Jacobs complete the ‘8’ of the ‘telephone’ team to try to rub shoulders in a high-level classic.
The list of applicants is led by the tireless Slovenian cyclist Tadej Pogacar, winner of the 2021 edition and who defeated Valverde in the Tre Valle Varesine, and who will meet again more than two months later with his executioner in the Tour de France, the Dane Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma), who has barely raced since his success on the Champs-Élysées.
In addition, there will also be another one-day event expert such as the Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe (Quick Step-Alpha Vinyi), while other riders to watch, apart from Vincenzo Nibali, winner in 2015 and 2017, may be the Italian Domenico Pozzovivo (Intermarché -Wanty-Gobert), the British Adam Yates (INEOS), the Spanish Carlos Rodríguez (INEOS), the Dutch Baukke Molema (Trek), winner in 2019, or the Colombian Rigoberto Urán (EF Education-EasyPost).
All of them will have to overcome a tough 253-kilometre route, starting in Bergamo and finishing in Como, where the favorites will have to arrive with legs for the last 50 kilometers in which they will have to climb the Madonna di Ghisallo, San Fermo de la Battaglia, in two occasions, and the stop of Civiglio.