Díaz defends Normandie paticipation

After returning from the Tour de Normandie without a single result to show for it, I for one was thinking: "Was this a good idea in the first place?". I think a lot of others were thinking the same thing, but, according to manager Alex Díaz, it was more than worthwhile: "We return from Normandie with the feeling that this was the perfect race to fulfil our objectiv as a team: to develop. We've experienced a different kind of racing than what we're used to. The races we normally take part in weren't held this week and therefore we went to Normandie. A lot of very strong teams took part, comprising of very strong riders with a different way of riding compared to our riders. All this meant we had to adapt to the route, which was a very hard one, if we wanted to compete. For this reason alone I think it's really good that we took part, eventhough we didn't obtain any good results. The six riders that took part learnt a lot, they learned how to compete. We were very aggressive the first few days but, as imagined, the stages eventually took their toll and made the riders exhausted. It made it a lot harder that we didn't know 'how' to race in these kind of races. That tired us. We have to continue to take part in races like this, it aids the riders' development. But we have to be conscious of our goals going into them."