Vuelta a España - Alejandro Valverde: Roglic remains very strong
Sep 13 2019 01:37 am CET
Photo of Alejandro Valverde by Jonathan Roorda / CyclingPub.com
Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) climbed one spot and is currently in the second overall place of the Vuelta a España, after the end of the 18th stage.
The World Champion remained with the favourites until the end of the stage and was able to follow the attacks of Miguel Ángel López that left other GC riders like Tadej Pogacar and his teammate Nairo Quintana struggling behind. With one mountain stage to go, the rider showed to be still strong and capable of finishing in a good position.
"Everyone knew López would go on the attack, and so our task near the end was defending ourselves from it if we weren’t able to drop Roglic," said Valverde at the end of the stage. "His moves were sharp ones -López is always a combative one, a big talent you can’t lose sight of-, yet when he tried it in Morcuera we saw he didn’t open that big of a gap, and chose not to go after him, just trying to let him waste energy as we kept riders at the front, with Nelson, and into the GC group, with Marc. As he went away again in Cotos, I had Nairo behind me into a separate group, and thus couldn’t take a turn to go after Higuita.
"My legs? Well (laughs), just like everyone’s: better at one stage, worse at the next one. Roglic remains very strong, yet we’re still there. We’ve got two tough days ahead yet, and we can keep gaining or losing time. We just can’t do anything other than keeping pushing."
SUBSCRIBE TO RSS FEEDS