The brilliant winning streak of the Movistar Team in the beginning of the 2015 does not seem to come to an end. Javi Moreno made an outstanding, surprising performance on Wednesday afternoon to claim the TT closing the first day of racing in the 61st Vuelta a Andalucía - Ruta del Sol, an 8.2km course in and around Coria del Río - near Sevilla - with two short climbs and long straights favouring the specialists. The Andalusian, out on course halfway through the start list, stopped the clock on 9'51", a time neither the big rouleurs nor the GC contenders, such as Alberto Contador (TCS, 4th) or Chris Froome (SKY, 10th), could beat.

Moreno's sensational ride, his 9th victory in the pro scene, was completed by a good result by two of the other references by the squad led by José Luis Arrieta: Intxausti and Gorka Izagirre. While the Gipuzkoa-based rider finished with 10'02" for seventh in the day, Intxausti ended his effort three seconds quicker (6th) and jumps into 3rd overall, just one second behind Contador and Jungels (TFR) with four difficult days remaining. The easiest, though, comes tomorrow with only the Alto de la Primera Cruz (Cat-3) making things harder for the sprinters on the way to Lucena.

“To be honest, the first one surprised about today's result is myself, so much that, when I clocked the best time, I was pretty sure I would get out of the hot seat quickly - but riders went, and on and on, and the smile was bigger and bigger," Moreno said. "Today's TT was a matter of taking as many risks as possible: there was a long straight and that could favour pure specialists, but the road wasn't really good, turns were a bit covered in dust too - the secret was going a step further than normal. I had nothing to save for other days as I lost out on my GC chances with the crashes in the morning, so I gave my 100%.

"I cannot be happier. This victory is dedicated to everyone who is always there, especially my family, my wife Gema and the little Javi. Now there's four stages in front of us to support Juanjo [Lobato] int the sprints and Beñat for the overall. To make such a time trial as he did, he must be in really good condition, and we were fortunately enough he wasn't affected by the crashes. With any of them, I'm sure we will achieve more success this week."