Alejandro Valverde has had his fair share of bad luck in the Tour de France and in 2013, only an unfortunate mechanical prevented him from finishing on the podium. While he claims not to be obsessed by the race, the Spaniard hopes to have a Tour without any setbacks in 2014.

One of the big topics of discussion in the off-season has been how the Movistar team will distribute its captaincy duties in the grand tours between Nairo Quintana and Alejandro Valverde. While the latter appears to have been in serious doubts whether to focus on the Giro d'Italia or the Tour de France, the latter has done nothing to hide that he would prefer a return to the world's biggest bike race.

Hence, it came as no surprise when Valverde announced that his 2014 season will again be focused on the Tour. The Vuelta a Espana, the world championships and the Ardennes classics may be additional objectives but it is no secret that Valverde would most dearly love to finally realize his life-long dream of standing on the podium in Paris.

Valverde has been plagued by enormous amounts of bad luck in the Tour de France ever since he lined up at the race for the first time. On that occasion, he was forced out of the race due to injury after winning a big mountain stage in the Alps and one year later he crashed out of the race in the opening days.

His involvement in the Operacion Puerto saw him miss the 2009, 2010 and 2011 editions of the race and when he returned in 2012, his GC ambitions were again derailed by crashes in the first part of the race. This year he was riding better than ever and seemed destined to end on the podium when an untimely mechanical saw him lose more than 10 minutes on the windy stage to Saint-Armand-Montrond.

“It was bad luck," he told Velonews in an interview. "I had good legs, both in the Pyrénées and in the Alps, to be at the front, but with this error, it wasn’t meant to be.

“It was a combination of circumstances. I had a problem with a wheel, in the worst possible moment in the worst stage … that’s life as a cyclist. I’ve already so much bad luck over the years in the Tour, well, one more time. … ”

The 2013 incident was the most extreme example of the bad luck that has prevented Valverde from fulfilling his potential in the Tour. As a past winner of the Vuelta a Espana - in fact he hasn't finished outside the top 5 of his home grand tour since 2002 - he knows that a podium place in La Grande Boucle is within his capabilities.

“I keep thinking [of] the Tour. I think the route is good for me next year,” he said. "I am not going to obsess about it, but I want to do it as well as possible.

“I’ve never quite been able to fulfill maximum at the Tour. Either through bad luck, perhaps an error, or a mechanical, there always seems to be something that impedes me.

“We’ll keep trying. At the same time, it’s not an obsession. Cycling is not just the Tour, but it’s there as an objective.

“I’d like to get through a Tour without setbacks,” he added. “I believe that I have the legs to do a good Tour. And for me, that’s the podium."

However, Tour organizers ASO have presented a route that contains the pitfalls that could again be the scene of some bad luck for Valverde. The first week includes a stage that sends the riders over the feared pavés in Northern France and it seems to be an obvious point for Valverde to again suffer some kind of incident.

To get accustomed to the rough surface, Valverde is likely to do the E3 Prijs Vlaanderen. If he can get safely through the tricky opening week, he sees the route as perfectly suited to his abilities.

“This year’s Tour favors me, especially with the final and only time trial coming on the penultimate stage. That favors less the specialists and more riders who have good form at the end of the Tour,” he said.

“The route is good in that, if nothing else goes wrong, you’re not going to lose time in an early time trial, and you are strong in the mountains, so you still have all your options until the penultimate day. It’s a Tour that’s good for me. Let’s see.”

Valverde will follow a schedule that it more or less identical to the one he had in 2013. He will start his season in the Challenge Mallorca in early February.