Tour of Spain 2013: Stage 8 Mountain Finish Perfectly Suits Alejandro Valverde

A quick glance at the betting odds for Stage 8 of this year's Tour of Spain will bring up Alejandro Valverde's name as the overwhelming favourite—and rightly so.

Currently sitting in fifth and 21 seconds off leader Vincenzo Nibali, the Spanish rider is in a good position with the Tour around a third of the way through. The past three stages have favoured the more specialised sprinters, but the Tour of Spain is more mountainous than anything else.

The next three stages revert back to that pattern, all featuring painful climbs to finish. These will form a clear group of riders who are in line for overall victory, so it's vital that Valverde performs well through Stage 8.

Valverde won two stages of last year's Tour—including this one—and both of them featured steep climbs to finish. Valverde finished second overall in the 2012 race and will again have the support of the home crowd.

Stage 8 plays to his strengths, with the last 14 kilometres being a battle up the Alto de Peñas Blancas. The riders will rise 15.5km at a maximum gradient of 12.5 percent.

There are no designated climbs preceding the ascent to the finish, with a couple of intermediate sprints across fairly flat terrain being more emblematic of the stage. Valverde is perfectly suited to this and will look to set the pace. 

With his rare combination of sprint and climbing speeds, Valverde will be right at the front of the pack as they approach the mountains.

José Luis Arrieta, director of Valverde's Movistar team, spoke to CyclingNews.com about the importance of Stages 8-10:

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I think [Saturday] will be like the first real contact with the mountains of a Grand Tour, and there will be casualties. But the stage on Monday to Hazallanas is the first time in this year’s race where the eventual winner of the Vuelta will have to show exactly what kind of climbing performance he is truly capable of producing and what he will need to produce to win the Vuelta.

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However, when asked whether Valverde should make a run at the jersey over this period, Arrieta was non-committal, instead stating that “the ideal strategy would be to take the lead on the Angliru, but you never say ‘no’ to taking it, either.”

The Peñas Blancas have never been featured in the Tour before, but Valverde and the rest of the Movistar team have been training in this region and know the area well. It's the perfect place to make a statement about Valverde's ambitions for the Tour.

If he's sitting anywhere near the front of the leading group as they approach the mountains, it's safe to say he'll be first to cross the line.