Cycling Book Review: The Green Bullet, by Matt Rendell

Title: The Green Bullet – The Rise, Fall and Resurrection of Alejandro Valverde and Spanish Cycling’s Corruption
Author: Matt Rendell
Publisher: Seven Dials
Year: 2023
Pages: 269
Order: Orion
What it is: A biography, of sorts, of Alejandro Valverde
Strengths: Whether you love him or loathe him, Valverde lived in interesting times and Rendell does an entertaining job of reminding us of those times
Weaknesses: It’s a long-read feature stretched thin, to the point that the conclusions Rendell reaches do not feel earned

The record books tell us that Simon Špilak won the 2010 Tour de Romandie for the Italian Lampre team. That’s not how fans remember it. They remember Alejandro Valverde in a Caisse d’Epargne jersey winning the final stage, a tough day in the mountains, and – powered by that victory – climbing to the top of the general classification.

It was a win that offered some consolation for a barren Classics season, with La Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège – races Valverde had won in the past and which fell either side of his thirtieth birthday – going to others.

Speaking to the press after his victory in Romandie, Valverde noted that he was perhaps feeling a little tired from a season that had started in January and seen him take his only other victory of the year so far, the overall win at the Tour Méditerranéen, on Valentine’s Day. “Now I’m going to take a short break to rest with my family before returning to training and preparing for the Dauphiné Libéré, which will be my next objective.”

The Dauphiné was a month away. Valverde didn’t get to race again for another 21 months. Operación Puerto, the Spanish investigation into the activities of Eufemiano Fuentes which was then into its fifth year, had claimed another scalp, with Valverde spending a two-year time-out on the naughty step.

Alejandro Valverde Belmonte, known as Bala Verde – the Green Bullet – or Bala for short, was born on April 25, 1980. Friday’s child, loving and giving. A Taurus, stubborn but hard-working. Blondie was topping the pop charts, Johnny Logan had just won Eurovision and Hamburg had knocked Real Madrid out of the European Cup. Franco was five years dead, democracy had…