Alejandro Valverde

We're into an Olympic year, with Tokyo preparing to host the Games for a second time, and I can't help but feel sorry they won't be held rather closer to home...

Afternoons spent watching La Vuelta, watching and admiring largely unknown vistas and landscapes which are ignored but worthy of our attention...

Madrid has two fiestas, San Isidro and the Paloma. In the 1950s and 1960s there was another, the final of the Copa del Rey: always played here, and almost always with Athletic.