After a good debut on Tuesday, Colombia-Coldeportes had to face a traditionally tough test in Vuelta Burgos stage 2, a13,3 km team time trial around Burgos. The Escarabajos finished in 10th place, 55 seconds behind the Astana team. The Kazakh line-up dominated the stage with a 14.40 time, putting 28 seconds between themselves and the closest rivals – Caja Rural and Movistar, 2nd and 3rd – but they lost their team leader Mikel Landa on the road, as the Spaniard was dropped in a very tricky second part of the route.

Caja Rural also had to deal with a similar fate, as they saw race leader Carlos Barbero hit the ground in the final bend, along with one teammate: the leader’s jersey moved to the shoulders of another Spaniard, Luis Leon Sanchez (Astana). The four athletes who stopped the clock for the Colombian team were Fabio Duarte, Leonardo Duque, Carlos Julian Quintero and Rodolfo Torres, after Miguel Angel Rubiano had been slowed by a mechanical.

Sports Director Oscar Pellicioli was concrete and honest in commenting his team’s display: “It obviously was not a good team time trial. It is a hard challenge for us, and we could not work on it in training during the last few weeks, as every rider was at his home, in different areas of Colombia. Before the Vuelta we will make some specific training to smoothen the mechanisms ahead of the TTT in Puerto Banus.”

“Today’s route was tricky: very fast at the beginning, narrow and technical in the second part, with cobbles and tough bends. Maybe we took some fewer risks than other teams, and some of those have paid a big price with their leaders’ crashes. All in all, only Astana made a big gap to everyone else today, while other teams are closer to each other: many riders will be looking to attack and recover, and we will be there to take every chance,” Pellicioli added.

There was no variation in the KOM classification: hence, Fabio Duarte will be again wearing the best climber’s red jersey in the third stage of tomorrow, August 6th, from Castrojeriz to Villadiego through 165 km.