Il Lombardia / Tour of Beijing

Alejandro Valverde, Movistar Team set to fight for both individual and collective WorldTour rankings in their final two races of the season: Il Lombardia and the Tour of Beijing

After more than eight months racing across the world, with 34 victories and outstanding performances in many of the world’s most prestigious races, the Movistar Team will close their unforgettable 2014 season with the final two events of the UCI WorldTour: Il Lombardia (Sunday 5), last ‘monument’ of the classics calendar in its 108th edition, and the Tour of Beijing (Friday 10 – Tuesday 14), conquered last year by Beñat Intxausti.

Alejandro Valverde will be telephone squad’s leader in both Italy -256km on the Foglie Morte‘s programme, over seven climbs plus a hilly finish in Bergamo- and China -five stages, including a mountain-top finish in Mentougou a day before the grand finish in the Olympic Park-. The Spaniard will seek for overall honours in the WorldTour, now ranked second (606), sixteen points behind Alberto Contador (620) as 200 -100 each race- are still up for grabs as well as six per Beijing stage. The Movistar Team (1,360) will start in Lombardy with a 174-point margin over Tinkoff (1,186).

On Sunday, Valverde will be joined by Intxausti, Eros Capecchi, Jesús Herrada, Ion Izagirre, Dayer Quintana, Jasha Sütterlin and Giovanni Visconti, with Chente García Acosta as sports director. Five days later, Enrique Sanz and Pablo Lastras will replace Capecchi and Izagirre on Chinese soil; José Luis Jaimerena and José Luis Laguía will be the DSs.