In the ProCyclingStat ‘all time’ points classification, Alejandro Valverde is ranked sixth, behind Eddy Merckx, Sean Kelly, Francesco Moser, Roger De Vlaeminck and Bernard Hinault.
Valverde secured his place in the exclusive list thanks to 133 races and 348 podium finishes during his 21-year career, a rare mix of longevity and success.
Valverde raced for the last time at Il Lombardia but refused to call it a day, travelling to Singapore and Saitama for the Tour de France criteriums. He does not seem tired of racing and was never tired of doing the same races, be they small races in Spain, the WorldTour Classics or Grand Tours.
He rode the Tour de France 14 times and the Vuelta a España 16 times. His palmares includes seven podium finishes at the World Championships and his yearly participation in the Ardennes Classics, with 16 starts apiece in Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège and then there were 14 starts at Il Lombardia.
There might be a lot of minor Spanish races in Valverde’s total of 133 wins, but there are plenty of top-class victories too. And nobody criticises Merckx, for example, for wanting to win at everything he rode.
Valverde’s enthusiasm fo racing and his palmares are widely admired but he remains a divisive figure in the sport, especially outside of Spain.
Long standing critics of Valverde insist that his involvement in the Operacion Puerto blood doping scandal and his subsequent ban left an irreparable stain on his career, particularly when coupled with his failure to acknowledge his involvement or make some kind of apology.
Those who feel Valverde is a modern-day hero of the sport, with no questions needing to be asked, argue that his subsequent ban and time out was enough of an act of contrition, voluntary or not.
Is there a definitive way to judge Valverde?
As Neal Rogers wrote on Cyclingtips (opens in new tab) after the Spaniard won the World Championships in 2018, “Valverde doesn’t owe anyone an apology. But fans don’t owe him their support, either. Everyone’s entitled to react to his World title in their own way. There is no clean, easy answer to this.”
Ultimately, Rogers concluded that with no further positive tests or clarifications, but no apology either, we’re doomed to remain in the notoriously fickle, malleable court of public opinion, where simultaneously everybody has their opinion.
The more Valverde…
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