Alejandro Valverde at the head of the new Movistar Gravel Team

Alejandro Valverde had already said after his retirement that he was attracted to the gravel discipline. An interest that today takes shape with the announcement of the new Movistar Team Gravel Squad that will be captained by the Spaniard and that will start its career by taking part in La Indomable, which will start the UCI Gravel World Series 2023.

Movistar enters gravel

In recent years, road cycling teams have increasingly diversified their presence in other modalities of the sport. Faced with the traditional immobility, which considered it detrimental for their riders to practice activities other than road cycling, the paradigm has changed to even encourage their presence in all kinds of events, which results in greater visibility for sponsors, essential in this crazy world of social networks and continuous exposure.

What used to seem like an exception, like Van der Poel, Van Aert or Stybar in cyclo-cross, or Viviani on the track, is now much more common. Take Tom Pidcock, for example, who is even more prominent in the mountain bike world than on the road. A policy of diversification that EF Education-EasyPost began to promote, which, for example, has a rider like Lachlan Morton, exclusively dedicated to ultra-distance and gravel challenges.

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Now it is Movistar who is seduced by gravel. A discipline to which it began to set its sights at the end of last year with Carlos Verona participating in several top-level races, including the World Championship held in Italy.

Movistar's commitment to gravel has been strengthened with the creation of the Movistar Team Gravel Squad, which will make its debut on April the 23rd in the Indomable, the first race of the UCI Gravel World Series this season and is also scheduled to participate on April the 29th in The Traka.

Leading the squad is none other than Alejandro Valverde, who already said after his retirement that he was very interested in gravel and who, since the beginning of the year, has continued training as much or more than in his time as a professional. The rider from Murcia will be accompanied in this new adventure by Iván García Cortina and the Movistar e-sports team riders Ana Dillana and Hayley Simmons.

Gobik, supplier of the telephone team's equipment, has prepared a specific kit for this new adventure, with a striking change in the color of the bib shorts, which are now brown.

New events in which the Movistar Team Gravel Squad will take part will be announced soon.