Really away from his comfort zone, Nairo Quintana (Movistar Team) showed once again why he's considered a champion in the Dwars door Vlaanderen race in Belgium, the first even in the country for the Movistar Team in 2015, over 200km full of cobbles and hills between Roeselare and Waregem. The Tirreno-Adriatico overall winner stayed until the final 35km together with Fran Ventoso with a pursuit group including many of the biggest favourites. The race broke into pieces at the Taaienberg climb, with Wallays (TSV, 1st), Theuns (2nd), Van Baarle (TCG, 3rd) and Kwiatkowski (EQS, 4th) jumping away to contest the final sprint.

Even better than Quintana's great experience - the Colombian was 78th, 7'02" back, finishing with all his team-mates and only surrendering as 30 riders were left into the bunch - Andrey Amador led the group directed by Jaimerena and Garcia Acosta with a great display of consistency, always pushing in the pursuit and coming just one place short for the Movistar Team's best result in this race, 13th at 1'30". The Costa Rican offered magnificent sensations in the first of many races in Belgium during the next two weeks, where he'll be one of the Blues' references.

“I felt good all day, and in the finale I tried to help my teammate Andrey [Amador] so he could be in front,” Quintana said. “With the crashes that others had, I didn’t want to take too many risks. But I feel good in this country, I enjoyed it and I think I’ll come back.

“I’m happy with today because it was a good experiment and today went better than I thought it would. My sensations on the cobbles were pretty normal. Sure, it was something different but I felt very good on them.”