The Parriolaburu Criterium in the Basque Country is pretty mountaineous with a tough double climb. It`s a good chance for the climbers/puncheurs to show their strength.
Mendes, Salerno, Sanchez, Moinard or Barrio will be the favourites here. But a lot depends on how hard the climbs are ridden if the puncheurs or climbers will have the advantage.
Anton Martin, Mourey and Pineau are the first riders in the attack with Lasca being a bit behind. So two French and one Italian/Spaniard each.
But after just two laps it`s obvious that the climb is really hard as Mourey, who is the best climber in that group is too strong for the first riders. Only Anton Martin is able to hang onto him.
Lasca never really made the jump towards the group while Pineau just can`t follow any longer.
Sergio Sousa (Benfica) is doing 99% of the work. Sometimes a Cisco rider is helping him, but actually not very often.
And still the Portoguese is keeping the gap under 2'30 with 34km to go.
On the 4th lap Castroviejo (Espana) attacks. Mid-Stage attacks often work in those crits and so he had to try due to his weaker climbing skills in comparison to the best riders in the peloton.
He is immediately followed by 3 more riders.
Possoni (Cisco)
Florencio (Barcelona)
Zabalo (Kelme)
Benfica is improving the pace now with 3 riders even though it`s still Sousa doing the most work. Their leader Mendes is the best puncheur here and obviously he is feeling well on the hard climbing ground even though he surely isn`t the best climber.
Castroviejo found contact with 25km to go.
1min behind the trio (Possoni, Zabalo, Florencio) follows with the peloton being another 39s behind.
About half time and we have the first huge split. Most mentionable riders being behind are Cardoso (Onda), Capecchi (Italian) and Rodriguez Oliver (Barcelona), which shows that the riders also need some climbing skills next to their puncheur skills as those tend to struggle on longer climbs for sure.
With 21km to go Zabalo is caught, while Florencio and Possoni slowly closing the gap to the front.
Only 24s between the first two groups, while the peloton is 1'30 behind the leading trio.
17km to go and with 3 climbs left they finally made it. So we have a group of 5 with a 1'05 gap over the 29 rider peloton behind.
14km and a 54s gap. What a strong performance here by Sousa. The Portuguese champion really shows strength here and still leads the peloton and even closes the gap.
More riders like Mori (Kappa), Felline (Italy), Fonte (Onda) or Failli (Kappa) are dropped, so the pace is still very high.
Possoni might be the strongest in the breakaway and so he opened a gap together with Castroviejo.
With 7km to go they extended the gap to 1'45 to the peloton now, where more teams would need to do something soon.
Finally an attack by the big guns with 5,5km to go and just a little bit until the last descent.
It`s Moinard (Alstom), Barrio (CSC) and Grau (Barcelona).
But with Benfica still doing a high pace, they had no chance and got caught immediately again.
Maybe Mendes should have had attacked by himself instead of waiting for his teammates to close the gap.
With a bit more than 2km left Possoni and Castroviejo have a 43s gap to Florencio and Mourey.
The peloton is another 1'14! behind, so almost 2min on the leading duo.
The win surely will go to those here, who were brave enough to go for a long attack.
Next attack by some riders at the 2,5km mark for the peloton.
Sanchez (Iberia)
Barrio (CSC)
Salerno (Cisco)
Moinard (Alstom)
With 3 helpers left, Mendes is still not doing anything. And if you look ahead you see Florencio and Mourey struggling, so the 3rd would still be possible.
Strong effort by Possoni. His better climbing skills surely helped him as he goes solo under the Flamme Rouge.
Castroviejo seems to be totally empty as he lost 32s on just 500m.
So the Italian with a big win today. This will bring him into a nice position for the GC of course. All the time Salerno was expected to be their leader but today his co-leader was the strongest or maybe the smartest.
Exhausted, yes. But still enough room to finish 2nd for Castroviejo. Another good result by the Spanish National Team.
45s behind just shows how strong Possoni was today.
3rd for a guy, who knows every corner of the Basque country.
Samuel Sanchez might not be the brilliant stage racer from once. But he is capable to take good results from time to time in smaller races.
His 3rd shows that he was very strong today and if there wasn`t the breakaway he could have won this as he was the only favourite, who was able to get a gap.
Behind him Florencio and Mourey finish as next still ahead of the peloton or the other late attackers. Great results for those two as well.
Osella leads the peloton over the line making it a great day for Cisco.
Livramento, Moinard, Eduardo Silva and most notable Sergio Sousa, who worked for most of the stage as 10th complete the point collectors.
So quite obvious the climbing skills played a role today.
Salerno (11th), Mendes (13th) or Barrio (16th) couldn`t play a role today.
Benfica at least got 3 riders in the top10, which must be a small reward for the work.
Moris Possoni
Jonathan Castroviejo
Francis Mourey
David Livramento
