Valverde smokes Ruta del Sol prologue

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Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) hurled himself through the roundabout-riddled Ruta del Sol prologue, taking a crushing seven second victory on the 7.3km course in Almería.

The Spaniard was going so fast that he caught his lead motorcycle in a turn, and had to dive around the bike as he hurtled to the stage win and race lead, seven seconds faster than Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Shimano) and another two seconds quicker than his teammate, Jon Izagirre.

It was the second straight prologue win in the Ruta del Sol for Valverde. Last year he won by two seconds, and held the jersey through to the overall victory.

"I'm the first one who's surprised about this result, not only because of the win but also due to the time gaps against such rivals, in such a short time trial," Valverde said. "I knew I was doing well with my form, but I didn't know how good. Profiting from our training camp in Almería, we came here on Monday to try the course. We reconnoitered it twice and I rode through it this morning with closed roads. I quite liked it because it had some changes of pace."

Although Valverde is pleased to have a baker's dozen of seconds over the Sky rivals, he acknowledged that it will be tough to keep the lead over the coming days.

"I'm back in the lead here, but there's a really hard race ahead of us. We'll go day by day, trying to keep the team together and doing well. The rivals will have to better us and we'll make it hard for them. I didn't prepare myself really hard to perform well this early in the season, but as I always say, it's easy for me to get into racing form, and the previous months, apart from some days with high fever after Dubai, didn't mean any troubles for me."

Dumoulin, who has yet to rack up his first victory since joining the WorldTour after three second places in 2013 was disappointed to miss out again.

"I'm becoming a collector of second places now, after last season," Dumoulin said. "The legs were good and I don't know where I could have made up the time, he was just faster than me on that course.

"The bike felt super fast and I felt strong so hopefully the win won't be far off – I'm done with second places now."

Team Sky stacked their GC men in the top 10, with Vasili Kiryienka, Geraint Thomas and Bradley Wiggins taking the next three spots, all within a second of each other 13 and 14 seconds behind Valverde. Javi Moreno (Movistar) slotted in at 7th ahead of Sky's Richie Porte.
Simon Geschke (Giant-Shimano) and Haimar Zubeldia (Trek) rounded out the top 10.

Sky directeur sportif Dario Cioni was pleased with the team's showing, and its position in the overall classification.

"Everyone did a good TT out there today," he said. "We're just missing the final punch but I think today it was more of a case of Valverde, Dumoulin and some of the others doing really good times.

"We've got a lot of guys up there on the GC and it's still very wide open. Today was the warm-up for some interesting stages to come. Tactically it's also not a bad option not to have the leader's jersey. We can approach tomorrow in a different way and we'll see what happens. Everyone is looking forward to it."

Valverde came into the race as the winner of last year’s prologue and the defending champion from last year’s race as well. It was Kiryienka who set the first serious marker of the day though, the former worlds TT medallist skipping through the turns and turning on the afterburners on any straight section he could.

Thomas was unable to take top spot but when Wiggins rolled down the start ramp and showed his intent with a blistering opening section it looked as though he would take over at the top of the leaderboard.

However, Wiggins fell short and it was Izagirre who took an unexpected lead. The Spaniard laid the perfect foundations for Valverde, who set off last. Dumoulin briefly threatened to steal the show with a highly impressive ride but Valverde was too strong.

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