Carlos Barbero has taken the sixth victory this year for Caja Rural. The Burgos rider won the last stage of the Vuelta a Madrid.
Barbero won the tight sprint and kicked off his victory tally for 2015, with the 6th win for the team and his 4th win as a professional. Babero was having a great year, almost winning on several occasions such as Turkey, Castilla y León, La Rioja and Amorebieta. Barbero’s triumph tops off a great weekend, where Omar Fraile won in France, and extends the team’s positive winning streak that now has 6 wins under its belt: Pello Bilbao in Castilla y León and the Tour of Turkey, Omar Fraile in the Giro de Apenninno and Dunkirk, Lluis Mas in the Tour of Turkey and now Carlos Barbero in the Vuelta a Madrid. That makes 55 podiums in 2015 and 44 places among the Top10, numbers that give additional value to the year’s sixth victory.
Carlos Barbero talks about the team’s lucky streak: “I hope it lasts, bad times will come again, we had a rough start to the season so now we have to take advantage of this great moment, although we shouldn’t forget that we have teammates who will not be able to compete for a long time and we have to remember them, they’re not doing too well. We’re not necessarily better riders now than before, we have to keep our feet firmly on the ground and enjoy these moments so we can overcome the bad times when they come again."
"The circuit was hard, but the team controlled the race well and even chased behind the break. They were great, Prades was even in a break. He dropped back to help in the final stretch. They've been around me all day. Everyone did their job to achieve this win."
Regarding the final kilometres, the stage winner had this to say: “Movistar prepared the finale for Sanz, I caught up to him and I knew when I had to start the sprint as I analysed the wind direction and where the difficult areas were with every turn, luckily it paid off."
Now that the rider from Burgos has opened his victory tally, he hopes “to continue Omar and Pello’s winning streak, the first is always the hardest, hopefully with hard work and enthusiasm I can win a second time. Neither I, nor the team, are going to settle for what we already have, this winning streak helps us all to be more positive, those positive vibes are contagious. Now I’m heading off to Norway , Philadelphia and Canada, hopefully I can add more wins to that tally there”.
Barbero took his fourth triumph as a professional, following wins in Alentejo, Getxo and Ronde de l’Isard.
Eugenio Goikoetxea, director of the team, said: "The work is paying off. When you win you always look for more. This dynamic helps the riders to believe in their choices. A win can change a rider. That happened to Amets [Txurruka], Pello, now Omar and hopefully also Barbero. Winning is an important step forward for him and should give him more ambition and confidence. We hope to enjoy this time and we will continue to chase this luck because a small detail can make you lose. We should enjoy this moment remembering who we are and what is our place. We are now in a winning streak and we must continue to work but also keep our feet on the ground."
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