Only the victory escaped a notable Movistar Team performance at the end of the 30th Vuelta a Castilla y León, where its three climbers preselected for the Giro d'Italia and the whole roster led by Chente García Acosta found a stronger rival than them in Frenchman Pierre Rolland (EUC), who took the win atop the Category-1 Alto de Lubián.
The telephone squad worked from the previous ascent towards Padornelo (Cat-2) to complete the chase of the early, five-man break, and pushed with Marc Soler and Jonathan Castroviejo on the descent as the early attacks from the foot of Lubián left only thirteen riders in the front, three of them from the Movistar ranks: Javi Moreno, Beñat Intxausti and Igor Antón. The two Basques got further with Torres (COL) and Rolland, who ultimately left them behind with just over 1km to go and snatched the final leader's jersey.
Intxausti (2nd, 12" in arrears) and Antón (3rd, 18" back) stepped onto a final podium also made by the whole Movistar team, thanks to their overall teams' win - Moreno, 11th today, also entered the GC's top-ten in a fine seventh. No major success came, though, for a squad which already hold their best record of victories before the 'Corsa Rosa' (15) under Telefónica's sponsorship.
Peter RENNIE 38 years | today |
Miyataka SHIMIZU 43 years | today |
Xue Sun 34 years | today |
Joshua SOBERON 35 years | today |
Maïté BARTHELS 23 years | today |
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