Alejandro Valverde crashed out of Stage 7 of the Vuelta España on a descent 40 kilometres in, slumped over his bike in tears, and it's complicated. He's 42. He was world champion in 2018. He also served a two-year doping ban. Anthony Walsh covers the stage and doesn't pretend any of that is simple.
Key Takeaways
Say what you want about Valverde and a lot of people have a lot to say but watching a 42-year-old who was still world champion three years ago break down on a mountainside is hard to watch. Anthony's take: you serve the ban, you get the clean slate. Full stop. The harder question is whether this is the end. At 42, still able to follow the GC group on a Grand Tour, there's an argument he does one more year. The cycling internet will either canonise him or drag up 2010 again. Probably both.
The stage itself was decided by a climb so steep that Michael Storer, winning the thing, had to zigzag up it like a postman who's given up on going straight. That's not a stylistic choice. That's 15% gradients with nowhere to hide. Adam Yates set tempo on the final climb that shed Landa, Carapaz, and Vlasov. Enric Mas sat at 25 seconds on GC, Superman Lopez at 36. The race is wide open going into the next mountain stages.
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If you want more race coverage from that 2021 season, the best riders of 2021 episode is worth your time. And the what it means to be a roadman episode gives you the broader context for why races like this one matter.