Valverde wins Clásica San Sebástian

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Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) made up for missing the final podium in the Tour de France, by taking the WorldTour Clasica San Sebastian in the Basque Country in a solo effort. Belkin's Bauke Mollema out-sprinted Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) for second place at 14 seconds back.

Rodriguez had attacked on the final climb, the Bordako Tontorra, and was joined at the head of affairs Valverde with 7km to go, the pair seeking to distance the chasers who were hot on their heels.

They failed to get enough of a gap, however, and at the start of the descent, Mikel Nieve (Team Sky), Adam Yates (Orica-GreenEdge) and Bauke Mollema (Belkin) bridged across, making it five in front for the mad dash into town.

Valverde was taking big risks on the technical run-in, and the pressure caused Yates to make a critical error - the young rider crashed in a bend, opening up a gap behind Valverde in the leading group.

Valverde pushed all of his chips in, hurtling down the rest of the descent, then tackling the flat final 3km on his own, holding off the chase to capture his second victory in the Clasica of his career.

"If you gained a few meters on the climb, it was very difficult for your rivals to get back on the downhill," Valverde explained.
I followed Joaquim's wheel when he jumped away, but he kept accelerating and went solo. As he told to me after the race, he lacked a bit of strength at the end of the climb, while I kept the pace stable and went full gas in the final slopes to catch him. I took the lead in the downhill to try and fight for it, just the two of us, and wasn't really aware of Yates's crash. When I saw I was alone, there wasn't anything to do other than go flat-out until the finish."

"This victory is a tribute to the Movistar Team and my wife, Natalia, always by my side. Now we'll keep training, but taking things easy, having some rest and starting thinking about the Vuelta. We've got a really strong squad, with Nairo in, and we'll do our best to keep the overall title within the team."

Amets Txurruka had soloed clear of the field in the opening 30 kilometres of the race and built up a healthy lead over the peloton. Both Peter Sagan (Cannondale) and Philippe Gilbert (BMC) abandoned and it was Valverde’s Movistar team that controlled the peloton as Txurruka pushed on.

The former Euskaltel rider was caught inside the final 70 kilometres as the peloton tackled the new format finishing circuit.
David Lopez (Team Sky) was the first to attack on the second ascent of the Jaizkabel and he was quickly joined by Visconti (Movistar), De
Marchi (Cannondale), Montaguti (AG2R), Laurens ten Dam (Belkin), Alberto Losada (Katusha) and Jan Bakelandts (OPQS) with 45km to go.

Trek and Orica-GreenEdge controlled the peloton and brought the dangerous move back before Andriy Grivko (Astana) attacked and built up a 30 second lead. The Astana rider was reeled in before the final climb before the winning break was made.

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