Samu 3rd in Critérium opener

Samu capped off great work by the team in today's Critérium International with a fine third place. The stage, which ended atop the Ospedale, saw Euskaltel and Astana assume control early on. The guys worked their buts off for their captain and he didn't disappoint. Fédrigo escaped to take the win ahead of Machado, but Samu held off Evans to take third, a result which sets him uå nicely for tomorrow's two concluding stages. Besides Samu, Beñat did well to claim 12, only 19 seconds down, while Egoi came in 27th, 1:52 back. Amets, Jorge and JJ all came in 10:46 back, while Mikel ended the day another 11 minutes in arrears. After the stage, the man himself was one happy rider. "The team was fantastic", he beamed. "The first thing I want to do is to congratulate them on their performance because they truly were amazing. We took control of the race right after we passed the first feed station, and together with Astana we set a high pace until we got to the climb. We encountered a strong head-wind on the climb, something which resulted in the group mainly staying together. Fédrigo and Machado were very aggressive and they surprised us. Beñat was phenomenal in making sure they didn't get too big an advantage. But Fédrigo got big enough a gap to be able to win the race."