It was another great performance by Jose Gonçalves (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) who finished in 5th place and thus obtained the 3rd Top10 position for Caj Arural in the Vuelta. Omar Fraile is still in the lead of the King of the Mountain classification, making a total of 13 podiums for the team so far this Vuelta.
Amets Txurruka still has aches and pains following his fall in stage 9: “He’s still in pain, he can’t get on the bike, luckily he was able to finish the stage, now comes the rest day, we have to keep in mind that he’s still experiencing pain from his fall in Getxo”, said the Director, Josemi Fernández.
Fernández adds that the stage “was war from the beginning. The escapes are costing us dearly. They arrived at the first climb without an escape, then a very large group broke away. But at the front, with all those people, it’s hard to think straight and, at the back, the peloton was trying to neutralise the escape. All in all, this meant that the pace was very fast all day long.
"We made it onto the podium once more with Omar, that classification as well as winning a stage are our goals. Let’s see how the Andorra stage goes, it will be a determining factor as to who takes home the King of the Mountain Award.
"Gonçalves is having a great Vuelta, he did well in Portugal, but he’s much stronger now, he’s giving the best riders a run for their money and that has a lot of merit. Let’s see how he does in the remaining stages, he will have to save his energy for stages such as Andorra.
"We want to fight for a stage victory, we’ve almost made it a few times, we’ll have to make it eventually.
"It's a very intense Vuelta," Fraile said. "We go fast every day and today was again a crazy stage. Tomorrow we'll have a chance to rest at last. In the last climb I felt my efforts of yesterday. Wednesday I will have to attack or I'll lose the jersey."
Raoul LIEBREGTS 49 years | today |
Andrew ROCHE 53 years | today |
Jay DUTTON 31 years | today |
Rolando AMARGO 28 years | today |
Serge JOOS 40 years | today |
© CyclingQuotes.com