Alejandro Valverde Wins the Vuelta a Espana, His First Grand Tour Victory

Podium Cafe calls it a coronation or a parade into Madrid. It was just that as Alejandro Valverde, the Spaniard, won his first grand tour on Sunday, claiming the top spot on the podium in the 2009 Vuelta a Espana.

It was the 64th edition of the tour of Spain and it will be quite memorable for the home country as not only did Valverde claim the top spot on the podium, but fellow Spaniard Samuel Sanchez claimed second place and Australian Cadel Evans placed third overall.

Valverde claimed victory despite not ever winning an individual stage.

“I always believed I could win a grand tour and I was close a few times … Now I feel liberated,” Valverde said. “It’s a special flavor to win a grand tour. It feels incredible. It’s strange not to have won a stage, but sometimes you have to leave some things to one side to achieve something else.”

Meanwhile, Andre Greipel of Columbia HTC pulled out his fourth stage win of the Vuelta. He wound up in the green jersey for the most points in the 09 Vuelta. He might’ve run the most impressive race overall despite not finishing in one of the top three spots.

It still remains to be seen what happens with Valverde and whether or not the performance enhancing drug suspension he has in Italy will be extended to other cycling events for 2010. But for now, he can go party in his home country and celebrate a thrilling win.

Alejandro Valverde held firm in the time trial Stage 20 of the Vuelta a Espana and now he looks to have a celebratory ride into Madrid on Sunday. David Millar from England won the time trail, giving the Garmin Slipstream team their third win of the 2009 Vuelta.

Valverde is sure to win his first grand tour in his home country with the largely ceremonial stage tomorrow.

“I feel like I have been liberated because I have won this race without having the single bad day most riders get in a big Tour,” Valverde said.

“It’s been a very tough Tour of Spain to win with more than 5,000 metres of climbing in one single stage and up to 10 days of continuous racing with no rest days.

“So I’ve played a defensive game, not doing any major attacks, and that’s been the key to my success.”

With Alberto Contador taking the Tour de France, this has been quite a year in cycling for Spain.

Today’s hilly stage was all about Alejandro Valverde proving that he could hang on and not succumb to various attacks as it was the final day for riders to really pressure him for overall GC lead. Valverde held strong and it looks like he’s going to wind up taking the top podium spot when the field rolls into the Madrid on Sunday.

As for Stage 19, Juanjo Cobo won on a wet, cold and rainy day as he was part of the eight-person breakaway. Samuel Sanchez, who is now second in the overall rankings thanks to Robert Gesink fading because of his injuries, was probably the last chance to attack Valverde and pose a serious challenge.

“I got so cold on the descent, I could barely turn the pedals,” Sánchez said. “I was hoping to try to attack Valverde, but the legs went cold.”

Valverde can see the end, but doesn’t want to celebrate too early.

“If there’s not any sort of problem, I should be able to do it tomorrow, but you cannot say you’re a winner until we’re in Madrid,” said Valverde, who had no trouble following the attacks to take second in the stage. “It was super-nervous today. There was a lot of tension in the race, but the team has been a ’10.’ They’ve protected me this entire tour.”

There’s a time trial tomorrow and then Madrid comes on Sunday. Unless something catastrophic happens, Valverde looks poised to win his first overall victory in a grand tour. It’s a shame that the Court of Arbitration for Sport postponed the decision on Valverde and his alleged use of performance enhancing drugs because, at least for me, it makes this coming victory a little hollow.

Not to minimize Philip Deignan’s Stage 18 win at the Vuelta a Espana, but Alejandro Valverde is closing in on winning the 2009 grand tour. There is really only one more chance for anyone to make a move on the Spaniard and that would be tomorrow’s stage. We’re down to the final stages, gents.

As for Deignan, he’s the first Irish rider to win a stage of a grand tour since the 1992 Tour de France. Deignan was part of a 16-man breakaway in a cold and wet day in Spain.

“Everything worked out just right,” said Deignan, who also gained nearly 10 minutes and bounced into 9th overall at 7:49 back. “I saw that Kreuziger was the strongest in the group and I followed him when he attacked. I expected him to attack me on the cobbles in the final kilometer, but maybe he didn’t have the legs.”

Congratulations to all of Ireland today. And to Cervelo test team, who took their second stage in the Vuelta. Interestingly enough, it seems like the field has continually weakened as this Vuelta has gone on. For example, Garmin Slipstream had three riders drop out on Thursday.

The question is, can Valverde hold on over the final stages for the win? It’s looking like that will be the case unless he’s involved in a crash and since he’s spending much of his time in the peloton lately, you never know.

France’s Anthony Roux survived one of the most pulse-pounding finishes of a stage of the Vuelta a Espana yet. The 22-year-old was part of a breakaway that the peloton was chasing right to the very end of the race and had the race been maybe even 20 meters longer, the peloton might’ve caught Roux. Roux wasn’t happy that some of the breakaway riders attacked with about 5 kilometers to go.

"I refused to think about them catching us, so I gave it 100 percent and hoped it would work out for the best," Roux said. "I kept a bit back for the end, although I was annoyed with the other guys when they started attacking with 5km to go when we had such a small advantage. The run-in was good for us with that downhill. This is my first grand tour, so I wasn’t sure of my condition, but the good thing is I’ve been recovering well every day."

There was also pretty nasty crash during the stage today that involved second-place rider Robert Gesink of Rabobank. He did continue despite having some cuts and bruises. Gesink might pose one of the biggest threats to golden jersey holder Alejandro Valverde. Andre Greipel, owner of the green jersey, finished third and has come close to solidifying a finish in that green jersey. Podium Cafe wonders if this jersey would be Greipel’s greatest accomplishment in his career.

As for Roux, he quickly went from gentleman to pig after the race. Roux handed a flower from his victory bouquet to the first couple of podium girls and then when popping open his celebratory champagne, he doused the next two girls who I imagine were representing the champagne company with a healthy bath. Nothing like turning the podium of the grand tour into the Tropicana. To the models' credit, neither of them broke their pose and basically retained their smiles.

Stage 18 heads back to the mountains tomorrow. So it should be the last couple of chances for someone to challenge the golden jersey of Valverde.

It wasn’t exactly a thrilling stage in today’s Vuelta a Espana (unless you count a nasty crash), mostly due to the lack of climbing. There was lots of flat road which meant that it was likely going to come down to another group sprint. And since Tyler Farrar was out, the field was seemingly wide open for Andre Greipel to win his third stage of the Vuelta.

“It’s a very important win for me, I very much wanted to get the victory today for a lot of reasons,” Greipel said afterwards. “It was a tricky finish with a lot of corners, but my team-mates kept me in front and I managed to stay out of trouble. We were lucky that only one rider was in the break and that made it a lot easier for us to control the race during the stage.”

Greipel wound up taking over the green jersey for points from overall general classification leader Alejandro Valverde who still remains in the golden jersey. With many of the other sprinters gone, Greipel seems poised to wind up in the green jersey at the end since there are only a couple of climbing stages remaining in the 2009 Vuelta. Especially given the way the course projects out tomorrow for stage 17.

Also, without bragging too much, SB Nation’s cycling site Podium Cafe totally called the winner of the stage today before it even started.

American Tyler Farrar finally broke through and won a stage of a grand tour and he happened to do it in grand fashion at the Vuelta a Espana today. Farrar of the Garmin-Slipstream team had played the bridesmaid so many times on the grand tours but after falling back on the last climb of Stage 11, Farrar worked his way to get in position for a long sprint at the end.

“When I started the stage I wasn’t feeling very optimistic because there were 3,000 meters of climbing, so I didn’t think it would be a sprint,” Farrar said. “After the second climb, I saw that Greipel was dropped, so we had people working together. Anything from now on is a bonus.

“I’ve been on the hunt for a stage win for all year. It’s true I didn’t win at the Tour, but I came out of there with great form. That’s why I won at Vattenfall and Eneco Tour, and that’s why I won today.”

Many experts felt like it was just a matter of time until Farrar broke through in a grand tour and he finally accomplished that goal. Alejandro Valverde remained in the golden jersey as the head of the general classification. Australian Cadel Evans is seven seconds behind.

Tomorrow is the last rest day of the race and then it's 10 straight days of racing before the final day pulls into Madrid on September 20.

Simon Gerrans of the Cervelo test team won Stage 10 of the Vuelta today and he proclaimed that he's essentially checked off at least one of his goals this race.

“I came here with two goals — one was to win a stage and another was to get ready for the worlds,” Gerrans said. “I’ve done the first and now it’s a question of topping off my form before Mendrisio.”

He became the first Australian to win a stage at all three grand tours, winning a stage in the Tour de France in 2008, a stage in the Giro d'Italia this year and now the Vuelta. It also gives the Cervelo team a win on each of the three grand tours this year as well.

The overall general classification list didn't change at all. Alejandro Valverde remains in the golden jersey as the overall leader with Cadel Evans just a few seconds behind.

It's funny how many of the riders are talking about the Vuelta as a warm-up for the World Championships. It minimizes the golden jersey of the Vuelta.

Regardless, tomorrow's stage is a climbing stage with a "leg-breaking" category 1 climb.

Stage Nine ended with a bit of controversy today as Alejandro Valverde wound up bumping Cadel Evans from the golden jersey. Evans was visibly upset at the end as he wound up getting pinched by Robobank's Robert Gesink on the last right-hand turn and Evans couldn't recover in time. Because of the allotted time bonuses for finishing first, second or third, Valverde wound up in gold at the end of the day.

There was an early breakaway and Gustavo Cesar Veloso wound up taking the stage. He held on for much of the stage. But the bigger story was Evans and how he was barking at other riders as they crossed the finish line.

The top six riders in the overall general classifications are essentially separated by about a minute. Evans sits second now, only six seconds behind Valverde.

The Vuelta goes back to a more flat stage tomorrow with really only one climb towards the end, so it should be another good day for the sprinters. We'll see if Evans goes out of his way to try and get back in gold again.

The Vuelta finally hit some climbing in stage eight and thus, there was a chance for breakaways. Most of the time up until today, breakaways were quickly swallowed back up by the peloton leading to a lot of group sprints at the end of stages in order to win.

Italian Damiano Cunego put on an inspired attack at the tail end of the stage after six hours in the saddle. He left the leading group behind and wound up catching David Moncoutie in basically the final kilometer.

The overall general classification was shaken up a bit with Cadel Evans capturing the leader's golden jersey, ending Fabian Cancellara's one-day back in gold. Cancellara dropped way back in the GC because he finished nearly 26 minutes behind. Interestingly, Saxo Bank teammate Andy Schleck dropped out of the race today.

Evans probably shouldn't get too comfortable in gold as he has Alejandro Valverde right behind him by only two seconds and Sammy Sanchez only eight seconds back. That could melt away quickly especially with more climbing tomorrow, albeit not as much as today. For the preview, check out Podium Cafe.

It was a sweltering day in Spain for Stage Six in the Vuelta, but that didn't stop the first-ever Slovenian Borut Bozic from winning out on a group sprint. It didn't change the overall general classification as Andre Greipel remained in the gold jersey.

Poor American Tyler Farrar was a bridesmaid once again, coming in second just a bike length behind Bozic. One of these days Farrar is going to break through.

Here is a preview of stage seven tomorrow. It's an extremely flat time trial stage, so look for the sprinters to be all over it. Expect Fabian Cancellara and Cadel Evans to be the favorites. Course not much has gone according to expectations so far in this Vuelta.

It's not shocking when someone from Columbia HTC wins a sprint at the end of a stage in the green jersey as points leader...hello Mark Cavendish, but today it was Andre Greipel winning stage five of the Vuelta a Espana. The victory over the last 100 meters of the 174km stage (and the first actually IN Spain) came in a bunch sprint and put Greipel in the Vuelta's gold jersey, the equivalent of the Tour de France's yellow jersey. The overall Vuelta leader for the first four days of the race Fabian Cancellara dropped to third overall in the general classification.

American Tyler Farrar of the Garmin Slipstream team keeps coming so close on the sprints but just can't seem to break through. He finished fourth today and sits third overall in the points race.

Tomorrow's stage six of the Vuelta begins and ends in Xativa, which has been a common theme for this year's race, beginning and ending in the same place. Lather, rinse, repeat. Although this stage actually features some decent climbing, so there should be a chance for some breakaways which, for the most part in the 2009 Vuelta, have been nonexistent so far. For a look at the upcoming stage, check out the preview on Podium Cafe.