Alan drops to 7th in Tirreno

It was a rather uneventful day for the team in yesterday's third stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico. Despite being aggressive in the early parts of the stage they failed to get a rider into the main break of the day. Amets gave it a good go with 20 kilometres left, but was rather quickly reeled back in a few clicks later. Rubén, Alan, JJ and Iñaki came in with the main pack, but Alan dropped to 7th overall. Amets, smarting from his earlier effort, came in 19 seconds adrift, while Pablo and Jorge came in with a group 11:45 in arrears. Aitor Hernández sadly had to drop out due to severe pain in his left knee. I suspected something wasn't quite right with him given his bad ride yesterday, and this has now gotten an explanation. Gorka Gerrikagoitia, the sports director, was quite happy afterwards though: "The team showed great attitude at the start of the stage. We felt good earlier today, but we didn't manage to get one of our guys into the break. When only one was left up front Amets gave it a go, but Liquigas set a high pace and caught up with him. They won the stage and lead the overall, so they did very well. Now we have to recover and give it another go timorrow. The bad note of the day was Aitor's abandonment. He started the stage, but he was obviously in a lot of pain and we chose to take him out so as to not risk it getting worse."