Classics Season 25th of April, 2016
Samuel Sanchez - It's time to retire!
After disappointing the Spanish fans by not showing up at the Vuelta al Pais Vasco and as well focussing on international races more than on spanish ones, Samuel Sanchez continues to fail in fulfilling the ambitions of spanish cycling fans.
While Team Movistar, in person of Imanol Erviti and Jose Joaquin Rojas, for the first time manaaged to get two riders in the Top 10 of Paris-Roubaix, Team Euskaltel once again had it's problems. Samuel Sanchez, who is waiting for GC success this season as well so far, has not lived up to the expectations like in any other cobbled classics before. Finishing outside the Top40 is a no show for a captain, which means that he might has overcooked his limit of abilities. Now the question arises: Has his time elapsed?
Blocking the ambitions of younger cyclists can no longer be done. Juan Jose Lobato claimed that he has sacrificed his chances for Sanchez and that he wasn't happy with the race. Egoitz Garcia told us, that he was surprised to be the best Euskaltel rider in 38.
And even the Basque Fans seem to loose faith in the Asturian. Skipping the most valuable race is an unexcuseable issue a fan told us via E-Mail. Now rumours had it already that Samuel Sanchez might let the Euskaltel Project go.
Even further point in that direction were made after the Ardennes Classics campaign. In there Euskaltel rode with a full strong team captained by Sanchez, who was supported by Nieve, Txurruka, Fraile, Bilbao, Lastra, Egoitz and Ricardo Garcia.
Ardennes Classics
16.4.-24.4.
Samuel Sanchez
Leader
Mikel Nieve
Free Role
Pello Bilbao
Domestique
Amets Txurruka
Domestique
Egoitz Garcia
Domestique
Ricardo Garcia
Domestique
Omar Fraile
Domestique
Jonathan Lastra
Domestique
Mikel Nieve, racing his last races before a break until late May/June, did reasonably well with an 11th at Fleche Wallone and an 18th at Liege - Bastogne - Liege. Also Garcia and Lastra, both finishing in the Top 25 in one classic, had a good time. Pello Bilbao even finished 9th at the Amstel Gold Race. Fraile and Txurruka were part in a breakaway. Egoitz did some hard work on the flat. Only one rider really disappointed. The captain.
Being aggressive in Amstel Gold Race did look good, but ended in nothing. When climbing up the Cauberg Sanchez was done from the attacks, so that he finished outside the Top 20. At the Muur van Huy he just lacked strength, and also finished outside the Top 20, clearly not with the best. Liege - Bastogne - Liege was his best race, where he could hang on to the big riders until the very last kilometer. But then he faded as well to finish 8th, which is too less for sure for the champion he was.
9th
Pello Bilbao
Amstel Gold Race
21.
Ricardo Garcia
Amstel Gold Race
11.
Mikel Nieve
La Fleche Wallonne
23.
Jonathan Lastra
La Fleche Wallonne
8th
Samuel Sanchez
Liege - Bastogne - Liege
18.
Mikel Nieve
Liege - Bastogne - Liege
These results make you wonder whether the team would've been better without Samuel Sanchez, to either spend the money on a relieable captain or to clean up some space for the spare young spanish talent that is in the team. Sanchez himself refused to speak with us about this theme, and so did the Euskaltel Team.
Talking in our roundtable of experts including successful Movistar Teams general manager Eusebio Unzue, who's Spanish captain Alejandro Valverde just achieved the historic Ardennes triple, Euskaltel Team in his current situation is just not good enough for the level of cycling. The captains, in first line Samuel Sanchez, have their best moments laid down in the past and lacks the depth to score enough points. We concluded, that a 38 year old rider that would be a leader at no other team that Euskaltel Team, should better retire as he is not able to compete on the highest level anymore.
Rumour has it now that after talks with sponsors and management there are 5 options left for the captain:
1. Staying in the team with a lower role.
2. Staying in the team on a lower level. (As for example in PCT, as financial structures are still doubtable)
3. Changing the job into a management position. (That might be tough, as fans seem to be really unhappy with his latest action.)
4. Quitting his involvement into the teams business after this season.
5. Folding the team.
According to biciciclismos sources inside Euskaltel Team it gets more and more likely that there might be a restructurement of the program, probably without Samuel Sanchez involved. Gaps between the team targeting Sanchez seem unkittable; and moreover there is an unclear financial situation for the future. Thus, the next weeks might be really interesting in terms of the future evolvement of the project Euskaltel Team, that looks to be under pressure after just 4 months of existing. Biciciclismo will have the latest news here for the upcoming weeks.
Nah Samu still has some left - I can feel it! Bring on Romandie and the Giro
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
I think Sammie would be good in a management position within the team because with all that experience he has to share he would be invaluable to the younger team members
today the final stage for the last Giro test has ended: The Romandie. Our man Igor has had a decent day today, securing his decent GC result. In the first stages it wasn't a good race for us: A 13th for Aberasturi on day 2, also the stage to Morgins and the ITTs weren't too much in favour of Igor. But on day 4 he took the race by heart, alliancing with Ion Izagirre on the Villars-s/Ollon. Too bad that he refused to work at the end with Nairo in mind, so that Igor had to do all the work. While Quintana came from the back, making it a famous 1-2 with Ion, Igor could hang on to 4th which secured a 9th overall that wouldn't be targetted on the bumpy final day anymore.
4th
Igor Anton
Tour de Romandie: Stage 4
9th
Igor Anton
Tour de Romandie: General Clas.
So what does this race tell us? Igor is in shape. 9th in the Pais Vasco, 9th at the Romandie, 6th at the Trentino, 3rd at the Valenciana. And that all after his great San Luis win to open the season. Euskaltel is ready and set for a go into the Top 10 of the Giro. Especially the later stages looked decent. And another thing: Our Giro captain has problems to keep track in a steady paced up peloton. But in open and agressive scenarios he can be an elite rider. We can't wait to see that at the Giro.
Gora to Gora Euskadi!
Vuelta a Castilla y Leon: With Victor de la Parte in 3rd, David Lopez in 4th and Julen Amezqueta in 8th we were able to place 3 riders on the podium. While Movistar, once again, took the win with Carlos Betancur and young and rising Marc Soler, who both took a stage, we also were able to celebrate some stage success with Juan Jose Lobato, who took stage 2 from a sprint. Great result for us!
Giro del Trentino: Our Giro squad minus the classics riders tested it's form at the Trentino. While Zubeldia offered his strength as the consistent supporter in the mountains, Igor had his moves on the climbs (which where basically all the time). The TTTs still hurt us, bot on the hard stages we could climb with the best. On stage 2 he finished third on the mountain top finish behind Landa and Pozzovivo to climb up in the Top 10 and make up for the TTT time loss. Following he finished with the best on the final stages, and thus gained two spots to finish 6th overall.
Tour of Croatia: A very young squad moved all the way to Croatia. Stage hunter Lobato was highly rewarded there, taking second on stage 3 behind Nizzolo and winning stage 6 ahead of Enger. To add to that, two 6th places on the opening stages made him just missing out on the points classification. While starting with no GC ambition, Jokin and Fran outclimbed expectation with a Top20 finish on the huge finish in Ucka, even ahead of the designated captain Romain Sicard.
Vuelta Asturias: On home soil Samuel Sanchez took on one final race after the Ardennes, trying to win. He just missed out though, as Dani Moreno, Garikoitz Bravo and Sergio Pardilla had that tiny bit more luck on his side. Puncturing on the final climb of stage 1, the hardest up to the Alto del Acebo, he missed that decicive seconds. With a big move on the hills and on the descent of stage 3 he made up some time, but it was neither enough to join the podium nor for the stage win, as Shilov and Moreno held on to him and outsprinted him. However, with Fraile in 8th once again two riders in the Top 10 in Spain.
Rund um den Finanzplatz Eschborn-Frankfurt:Juanjo had a team of classics men (including Egoitz, Ion & Markel) to support him on the German flat bad weather classic. Not our type of races normally. However, he suffered some problems early and never managed to come back. Opposite Ion Irisarri, after covering a move earlier, survived the tough conditions to finish as a respectable 12th.
Edited by Croatia14 on 20-06-2017 11:58
@Selwink: Especially on home soil some decent results, though winning a GC, especially in Asturias, would've been nice. Also some young guns with good tries.
@Tamijo: Well that would be a huge comeback, but he did look solid - The question is: Can he deliver on the Giro with stronger startlists and form peaks for everybody?
@Abhishek: Results look good on paper, but do those races count for much when it comes to decisions for the future of the team, especially in terms of level of cycling?
Giro - First Week - 2nd Rest Day 16th of May, 2016
With an average squad Team Euskaltel started it's first Grand Tour since coming back. Igor Anton is leading the team as a captain, that disappointingly didn'´t contain a plan B it seems.
Giro d'Italia
6.-29.5.
Igor Anton
Leader
Amets Txurruka
Lieutenant
Omar Fraile
Free Domestique
Pello Bilbao
Domestique
Markel Irizar
Domestique
Arkaitz Duran
Domestique
Julen Amezqueta
Domestique
Jokin Etxabe
Domestique
Miguel Fernandez
Domestique
The start in the Netherlands was disillusionating however. While Igor already was dead last of the GC favourites, the stage to Arnheim made it worse. Anton was caught out on the windy stage and lost contact to the big guns, which added together alredy meant 4 minutes of disadvantage.
Igor really looked bad on that day, but the rest day might gave him another shot, as he was very active in Italy. He finished with the best in Arremonga, where a lot of strong riders like pink jersey candidate Dumoulin really suffered. But then the Foligno stage was the cracker. Midway through the race Astana, Giant and Katusha ripped the race apart on the flat. Igor again was behind quickly, as several groups were up the road. Fraile stayed ahead as he was in the break and looked good in the mountains, all others came back to help Igor. It didn't made up for the damage done to him though, as he lost another 5'12 into Foligno to bury any Top5 GC ambitions already.
The ITT, won by Roglic, found Nibali in pink afterwards. But it finished Igor completely, who now sits 36th 11'31 down on Nibali. Possibly the 24th GC, Omar Fraile, now even is the new captain of the Basque sitting 6'03 down on Nibali.
All in all the expectations on Euskaltel Team, which already have been low before the race, have been even underwhelmed by a poor team performance so far. Beneath the lack of any result so far or a significant breakaway appearance (1 for Bilbao, 1 for Irizar) the leader Anton once again proved that he hasn't got it anymore. Especially not, when it comes to leading a Grand Tour or facing any problems that comes with the weather or tough racing on roads that do not go uphill for the race. Poor support adds to that, thinking of management decisions of f.e. pulling Fraile back on stage 3 makes it worse.
Seing what is for now one of the most pathetic performance in the history of any Grand Tour, even worse than the decision of putting Gazprom - Rusvelo into a proper bike race like the Giro, one question arises for any fan looking at the current situation with clueless riding and questionable management: Where do you want to go from here?
His [Samuel Sanchez] most memorable victory came at a ski station which was already part of Euskaltel-Euskadi’s history, at Luz Ardiden in the 2011 Tour. It was Sánchez’s first win in the Tour de France and came on the same ascent as Roberto Laiseka’s win ten years before. History, as it were, had come full circle.
The most dramatic win on home soil for Euskaltel-Euskadi was in Bilbao for Igor Anton, as the Vuelta returned to the Basque Country for the first time in over three decades. Attacking on a climb he would often use in training rides, Anton claimed a historic victory as Spain’s biggest race returned to its country’s cycling heartland.
It fell to Juan Jose Lobato to take the team’s last ever victory, in the GP Getxo near Bilbao, a low-level one-day Classic, but appropriately enough, just an hour’s drive from the Aranzazu sanctuary where the team had effectively begun on December 6th 1993.
Now that the team came back hopes spread for a new era of basque cycling. The former leading trio of Euskaltel - Sanchez, Nieve and Anton - claimed for a new start of the long lasting project, eventhough they only talked about 1-year guarantees.
At this point though it seems like even those are tough to hold, as the project didn't seem to attract the spanish cycling scene as much as they hoped for. Rumours say that these conditions tend to fear potential investors, which makes it most likely to have the project folding after one year.
The team started of with their first victory of the season in the spirit of their last one, as Anton attacked to victory in San Luis. Another highlight came from Samue Sanchez at Milan - San Remo or the stage win at the Tirreno. The decent Pais Vasco however couldn't kit the graves opened up lately with spanish cycling fans and Samuel Sanchez. A great Giro most likely is the last option for securing a future at Team Euskaltel, but at this point it looks unlikelier than ever. Otherwise we might have to write a new article at the end of the season, talking about "another last victory" of Euskaltel Team.
Spoiler
Updates might come not very regular over the next time, as it's an atrocious way of typing texts with a (once again ffs) broken hand [which could well mean 6 weeks of injury]. I enjoy every support on the story however, especially looking at how many great ones are on the run currently!
After a historically disappointing first couple of weeks at the Giro
Euskaltel Team had a couple of options laying open for the race, as they were far away from their initial goals. Could we expect an offensive firework in the upcoming weeks?
Giro d'Italia
6.-29.5.
Igor Anton
Leader
Amets Txurruka
Lieutenant
Omar Fraile
Free Domestique
Pello Bilbao
Domestique
Markel Irizar
Domestique
Arkaitz Duran
Domestique
Julen Amezqueta
Domestique
Jokin Etxabe
Domestique
Miguel Fernandez
Domestique
At least they tried. On stage 10 to Sestola they missed the winning breakaway, while on stage 11 Bilbao missed out closely with the group, getting caught on the final 2 kilometers by the pack. Stage 13 was the next day to potentially shine, and Julen did a good job braking away. Going into the region of Friuli he was with the break over the last climb, but then got caught on the last climb, while his fellow breakaway companion Amador secured a stellar breakaway victory to earn pink.
Going into the breakaway on the next day again Julen got even close to the mountains jersey, but suffered heavily on Passo Giau. Instead, Anton showed some sort of being alive with a huge attack on this Giau together with Fuglsang and again Amador and even dropping them on the Valparola. Heading down the descent to victory his problems once again caught up with him, as the duo in behind closed the 20 second gap to him and distanced him in a manner he couldn't come up with. Amador did beat Fuglsang in the sprint, meaning that Valverdes helper was now 4 minutes clear in the GC. But Anton, for the first time this Giro, showed some great form. More opportunities to come?
Not in the following MTT. Anton heavily suffered under yesterdays effort, only finishing 52nd, while Fraile with a decent 17th kept himself in the game for a Top20. Or more?
Stage 16 was a calm one for us. Julen once again tried to gain points for the climbers jersey, but Atapuma was too strong and our youngster suffered early on the Mendola, slipping down to 4th in the KOM classification loosing his last chances for that. Anton on a good day finished 9th, while Nibali, Valverde, Chaves and Zakarin gained some time on both Amador and also Kriujswijk on the Paganella.
After a flat one stage 18 was meant to be a barodeurs one. It turned out to be exactly that, as Bilbao & Etxabe were in the group it turned out to be pretty decent for us. Jokin suffered early on the decicive Pramartino, so that Bilbao was alone in the group of 12 batteling for the victory in Pinerolo. He finished 5th behind Arndt, Trentin, Navardauskas and Küng.
Stage 19 was a hard day, and we had Txurruka in the break.
While the experienced lieutenant rode a great race competing with the best, Fraile had a tough day already over the dell'Angello. He lost 17 minutes and all Top20 hopes. On the other hand, Anton climbed with the best, even when Kanger and Fuglsang ripped the race apart for Nibali, including dropping race leader Amador. While the Costa Rican lost a total of 2'20 on Nibali, Anton came in 4th, only 22 seconds down on stage winner Nibali, same time with Chaves and Valverde.
Anton suddenly only 3 minutes away from a Top 10, and both Caruso and Brambilla were worse than him on the last days. For a possible Top 10 some rough racing was needed.
And Stage 20 was fireworks. Anton wanted to go on the Vars again, but BMC chased him down. Instead, Txurruka & Irizar, the experienced riders of the team, joined the breakaway including some amazing names like Kangert, Uran, Atapuma and Thomas. At the climb to the Bonette though the worked out plan went flying:
Anton pulled out an attack followed by Brambilla. Caruso's BMC chased for 2 kilometers until they ran out of men with Atapuma batteling for the KOM up the road. Anton, using both Irizar and Txurruka, made the junction until the top of the Bonette, going in an 8 man group down the descent to start the Colle del Lombarda with a 5 minute gap.
There he, one by one, started to drop his opponents, halfway through the climb Brambilla was dead and gone, shortly after Thomas and before Monfort. Both Uran and Atapuma were also dropped, so that Anton came over the top with full KOM points and in a group of 4 with Foliforov, Ciccone and Kangert, With this situation he would sit in current 7th overall, as Dombrowski had a horrible day loosing contact early. The peloton was surprisingly calm, Kruijswijk set a long and hard pace that couldn't drop Amador though, who fought like a lion. Surprisingly Nibali didn't use Kangert as a relais station.
The Estonian had other plans anyway. On the steep downer slopes of the descent to the final climb he dropped his opponents, to then hold Anton off for his victory. The basque finished 2nd, 7 seconds later ahead of Foliforov and Ciccone. Most likely 500 meters of climbing more and it would've been a great victory for Anton.
This way it was a great result anyway, as he brought himself into the Top10 doing so. From the peloton it surprisingly was Amador, who caught up with the peloton again after the climb with a masterpiece of a descent and directly attacking others. Nobody reacted fast enough, so Amador took an advantage onto the final climb. There he was quickly left behind by Chaves, Valverde and Nibali, but it was enough to hold on and win the Giro d'Italia in a big upset of the favourites.
Stage 21 only was the show parade to Torino, after what has been a thrilling finale for Euskaltel Team, saving at least something after a horrible start. Anton finished 8th overall, Amezqueta 6th in the KOM and Fraile, Bilbao & Txurruka had some decent showings too. The young guys however need some better showings to be part of a WT worthy team that proudly presents the Basque Country.
The whole Pais Vasco is proud of our orange arrows, as viewer numbers were as high as never before for this Giro. EITB wants to highlight its support for the homegrown project, that brings us back what we deserve. Gora to gora Euzkadi!
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Hopefully you'll both recover well from the troubles.
