Pablo sprints to win in Asturias

Pablo Urtasun sprinted to Euskaltel's fourth win in April by taking out the first stage of the Vuelta a Asturias ahead of an on-fire Vicioso and Joaquin Sobrino. It was the perfect result for Pablo to cap of several weeks of impressive, yet winless, performances. The stage unfolded as anticipated with a two-man break getting some minutes leeway. The precocious Mikel Landa of Orbea was one of them, but together with Corti they were reeled in with 8 kilometres to go after hard work by Euskaltel. From there on in there was ever only one team at the head of the pack. Pablo's seven team-mates did a fantastic job to give him the perfect lead-out, and the powerful 30-year-old came around Vicioso on the right-hand side close to the barriers to take an important win. Pablo was a grateful man after the win. "The team has been awesome. From Intxausti to Aramendía, who was my last man, they all did amazing work. Romain Sicard, Jorge Azanza, Miguel Minguez, Gorka Izagirre and Jonathan Castroviejo all kept their calm to keep the pace high inside the last 5 kilometres. The team trusted me and it's a great joy to pay the back with this win. After crossing the line we were all happy and it was very emotional".

Beñat, Jonathan and Javier came in with the leading peloton, while Romain, Jorge and Gorka came in six seconds back and Miguel 1:45. Gorka grabbed the first and only intermediate sprint points on offer ahead of Pablo and those two naturally occupy the first two places in that competition. Awesome. Mikel Landa is leading the mountains ranking after grabbing maximum points on offer, so that's great as well. All of Orbea's riders, including Mikel, came in six seconds down, but no one could possibly be bothered by that on such a good day.