The North American time trial was the first championship including our riders to kick off. We sent 4 riders there with very different aims:





This was what we expected from this race and we achieved both goals: Maxime Oget won the Laterne Rouge by finishing 35th and Andrey Amador is now South American Time Trial Champion after finishing on the podium of the All American Time Trial Champion. Only the BMC duo was unbeatable.
Nairo Quintana finished a strong ride with tenth place which secured him the title of South American Vice Time Trial Champion. Our fourth starter Ospina got 29th.








And again we succeeded our goals. Jonathan Castroviejo finished inside the top ten while the other three finished inside the top 33.
Only Belkin and Omega Pharma managed to get four riders better placed then our fourth rider which is another sign of our depth quality.

The Road Races

So true. We hoped that others would close the gap but nobody was interested to bring us back into the game.









Great job by Alejandro who tried it again and again but the other teams cooperated and therefore, he couldn't go solo to the line. Instead, he reached the podium together with Gilbert and the all-mighty Spartacus who won the race. Nevertheless: Well done, Alejandro! Behind him, Benat managed to finish 5th which is great, too!

To conclude:


We can call the continental championships a success.

During the championship break some riders stayed at home to train further. Especially, one rider has to be highlighted for his training work: Andorrean RR champion Albert Llanet. According to some of his team mates he has shown notable progress when riding on flat parts of the road.

A few days ago our team's calendar was leaked. So it is time to make it official. These are our races for the next few month.



We have edited this list a bit so that you can see how important the races are for our team. We underlined the sponsor goals, the races we had marked as important before are bold and Grand Tours are coloured:



I think this gives a good overview of our next months.

Heading into the second part of the season some big classics were to come.



The two biggest cobbled classics and the Amstel Gold Race were on our schedule just like the a very important stage race in the Basque country.

As our more important races are still to follow i went with a few guys ( Maxime, Benat and Nairo to be specific) of our ardennes squad to the final 80km of the L-B-L route. We rode rather slowly at least for the taste of my guys. For myself, the pace was already quite hard but i still could make a few nice pics with a helmet camera. It may be difficult to spot but you really had to take care that you dont slip away:



And it came as it had to came: One of us fall on a steep descent. And guess who was it? Right, it was me: the sportdirector.

That caused me to lay a week in the hospital and therefore, i missed the Ronde, Pais Vasco and the Hell of the North. So i asked Chente García Acosta to be DC at the two cobbled races and José Luis Arrieta to control the teams tactics in the Basque countries.
This may or may not have been to wise but rate it for yourself:

I only watched the race from my bed but i can try to report it after that what i saw in tv and what Chente and Jose told me.

Here is the report for the Ronde:

Our team was leaded by Jesus del Pino and Maxime Oget who both wanted to grap up a top 15. Amador, Erviti and Sanz are belong the domestiques just as Gutierrez, Rojas and Ventoso.

Chente decided that our team is strong enough to pull back the breakaway so no Movistar would be needed in the break.
According to Chente Ventoso fall back after Voeckler clinged on his rear wheel. I was not sure if i should believe that but after he showed me this picture i can't believe that Voeckler was not disqualified:




It hurted to see Oget in a that bad position in the back that he missed that important split but Chente was sure that Spartacus would bring the group back so Oget should stay in the back of that group.


This leaves del Pino alone near the front but ...
... obviously Chente did not realized that he crashed out earlier.

So thanks to our *interesting* team tactics Oget only finish 30th as best of our guys and Ventoso as 46th while three of our riders gave up because of tactical reasons and del Pino crashed out.

Chente has a bit to learn now and he gets his next chance only days later at the Hell of the North. Let's see if his work there was better:

Every one of our starters from the Ronde is on the startline again. Even del Pino who crashed very badly is willing to test the hell.

192 riders started the journey to defeat the Hell of the North.
15 of them got into the early break.
1 of them was Erviti.



Chente told me afterwards that del Pino wasnt sure how well he regenerated from his crash and that he did not wanted to get in a situation with the team being forced to work alone because of the treat Oget surely is for the rest of the teams.



Oget sits in a good position near Peter Pal and Fabian Cancellara so it was unlikely that he would get on the wrong side of a split again.
Chente said he told him to always stay on the rear wheel of Spartacus regardless of what happens.

After about 200km, del Pino had to give up as his open wounds from the week before suffered him too much. What a disappointing season for the young supertalent. He will surely come back next year and then he is looking to get on the podium the crash denied him this year. His main goals for the rest of this year will be the Dauphine where he will have a free role and the Eneco Tour where he will share leadership with Andrey Amador and Maxime Oget.



Speaking of Oget:
He drops from the group of favourites together with a few Radioshack guys. Obviously, he thought that Spartacus has the start number #2 so instead of him he followed Stijn Devolder who finished his domestique work. According to Chente he did not saw this as he was speaking with Jesus there instead of paying attention to what happens in front of him.
(" Noone can concentrate for so long" - "Sure, we all understand "

Only one rider with realistic podium chances left now: Erviti. After Chente talked to him Erviti attacked and he can get a gap together with Dutch cyclist Van Emden. But he was without a chance when Cancellara started his bike motor and accelerated in the group of favourites. This concludes another disappointing result for us.
Oget got 35th in the end and Erviti finished in the same group
or with the words of Bernard Hinault : "Paris–Roubaix is bullshit"

What a tactical masterpiece of our team! After seeing both big cobbled classic and the story behind our race in the Basque country (to be announced) i wanted to back in my car for the Ardennes for all costs.
But this is another story which will be told later..

Layin' in my bed in the local hospital i had something to look forward: The Vuelta a Pais Vasco. A stage race with five hilly stages and a 24km hilly time trial sound like the perfect race for our team. Our squad was headlined by Alejandro Valverde who seems to be the (nearly) safe winner of this. Rui Costa is a unbelievable strong secondary weapon. The rest of our lineup are Jesus Herrada, Madrazo, Moreno, Plaza and Visconti.
According to bwin, Kwiatkowski, Moreno, Contador and Richie are our strongest rivals.

But then the chaos continued.
I got a phone call of José Luis Arrieta:



And indeed, Benat managed to get in time to the start line of the first stage which was expected to be won by a reduced bunch sprint. Which was correct. We finished with a fantastic team result with 5(!) riders inside the top25. Benat and Rui both finished inside the top10. 80 riders were given the same time as winner Kwiatkowski. After a flat stage stage 3 was interesting as a very dangerous rider could get some time advantage: Wilco Kelderman who is known as a very promising talent in both time trialling and hilly stages got 43 seconds from a late attack. Jose told me afterwards that he needed to show that our team would not do everything alone in the pack and the Dutch used this chance.
The next stage saw our very own Javier Moreno in the early break. After getting caught early the favourites made their moves and unfortunatelly Rui missed out the right attacks and lost 51 seconds to some of the best stage racer here. So what does this means for us:
We have to attack on the penultimate stage!
With 35km to go Rui Costa teamed up with Daniel Moreno to get a decisive gap. This paid off as he got the stage win and a gap of maybe 20 or 25 seconds. But what is that? After a little talk with Oleg Tinkoff the organisateurs denied that there was a gap and gave Contador the same time as Rui. This is a scandal and cant be looked over easily.
Which gets even worse after seeing that Rui's stage win in the time trial could only bring him 21 seconds short of Contador. What a shame. I hope the UCI takes a closer look on this one!

Ollfardh wrote:
Ah, so that was the mistake you made

But yeah, even without Valverde, it was really close, that one stage was suspicious indeed!

After seeing the ever rising success of the German cyclists we decided to start following the cycling circle again. Our reporter Stefan Ente has found an inner source at the spanish Movistar Team that explained their goals for the upcoming season:

The source (which want to stay anonymous) declared that as a spanish team they will surely have to concentrate on the biggest spanish race in the whole year which seems to be the Vuelta a Espana where the team aims to send a completely spanish line-up to the start line. "This is a goal which only very few teams have succeded in the past few years. We want to write history by doing so " Only Euskaltel managed to completed this goal in the last years.

But obviously, this isnt the only goal they have set. The two other goals are way harder though. They did great in the mountains so far. Now it is time for them to prove that the other terrains arent their weaknesses. There were some critics that the team lacks big engines on the flat races. The team aims to get a rider into the top 150 in the Vattenfall Cyclassic. When we asked we got this information: "Any expert can tell you that we arent belong the top favourites so we would be satisfied with a top 150."

The last goal we could get from our source takes place in the Benelux states: The Eneco Tour. "Other teams aim high. We want to be better than the rest and thus, we should aim higher than Sky and the other teams and thus, we should target really big." The team want to see one of their riders finishing in Geraardsbergen. "This may sound easy for some who aren't familiar with this race" and indeed, it is a race through two countries with a length of over 1000km and many paved sections that finds countless crash victims.

We will keep you informed whether they will succeed in these goals or not!

1: Send an all-spanish line-up to the Vuelta a Espana
2: Top 150 in Vattenfall Cyclassic
3: Finish Eneco Tour with more than one rider

Write us your opinion. Do you think these goals are possible?

Ollfardh wrote:
Goals can only cover 1 race, so I'm going to have to ask you to change the medium and hard one

knockout wrote:


Easy: Top 5 Il Lombardia
Medium: Finish inside the top 4 in La Vuelta.
Hard: Win 2 TDF stages."
[/b]

Some rumours were casted about us in the last days. We summarized them for you:

- De las Campos and Gorka Nieve seem to be targets.
- Our DS was seen in Italy for some contract negotiation.
- Movistar wants to sign some sprinting power to be able on more different terrains than only on the big mountains.
- A costa Rican puncheur and an american cobble climber could be build up for the future of the team.
- The team wants to sign the three Feunards as leadout for Jesus del Pino.

We don't want to comment on them but there are surely some that are way too far from reality but others may be true.

- De las Campos and Gorka Nieve seem to be targets.

knockout wrote:

- The team wants to sign the three Feunards as leadout for Jesus del Pino.