Samu 4th as three abandon

It was not a particularly good day for the team in today's penultimate stage of the Paris-Nice. It started off on the worst possible note when Gorka and Mikel both decided against starting the stage. Gorka is suffering from tendinitis, while Mikel had to pull out due to gastroenteritis. Not good. Romain got into the break of the day though, a big group containing 20 riders or something. He was surprisingly passive though, staying at the back the whole day and, when the pace was upped, went right out the back. Not good either. After that, Koldo decided to call it quits as well, leaving the team with only five riders. Two of them, Samu and Beñat, made it into the select group of riders after the last climb. Eventhough the stage was tailor-made for Samu, with a short, steep climb followed by a long descent into the finish, he decided against having a go. I found that very weird. A fifth place overall is not bad, but if you want to win you have to give it a go and risk something. A missed opportunity for sure. Eventually Samu came 4th, missing out on the bonus seconds as well and thus remains in 5th place overall ahead of tomorrow's last stage. But with his unwillingness to attack, I'm afraid we can't expect him to climb up a few places tomorrow. Anyway, both Samu and Beñat ended up in the front group, while Romain ended up 3:59 down in 51st place. Iván was 75th, 9:11 back, while Egoi was a lowly 116th, a full 18:32 back.