Samu show in Burgos

Samu reigned supreme in the Vuelta a Burgos today, taking out both the stage and the general classification with a blistering ride to the top of the famed Lagunas de Neila. The scene of Ibán's win in the same race back in 2007, the Lagunas de Neila climb is always the race-decider and today proved no exception. After the excellent trio of Mikel Nieve, Romain Sicard and Igor Antón had shredded the peloton to pieces on the early ramps of the climb, Samu broke away with the classy Ezequiel Mosquera and out-sprinted him to take the stage and with it the overall. What a ride! Not only from Samu, but from the whole team. Today's double whammy took Euskaltel's season-tally to 13. This is quickly turning in to one of the team's better season's number wise. And we're still just over halfway through. Igor is no doubt looking good for the Vuelta. Today he sat an infernal pace for Samu before going on to place fourth himself on the stage and as a result ninth overall. That's impressive. Mikel Nieve hung on to finish 14th, Romain 26th, JJ 50th, Aitor H 72nd and Pablo 92nd. Koldo dropped out after doing his part of the job early on. On GC Samu took first (obviously), Igor 9th, Romain 20th, Mikel 36th, JJ 80th, Pablo 96th and Aitor H 97th. Samu won the points classification, Romain the under-23 and the team finished second to Liquigas in the team rankings. Pretty awesome. Post-stage declarations from Samu: "We're very pleased; we've done an exceptional Vuelta a Burgos. Three stage-wins and three days in the leader's jersey, the last of those the decisive one, makes this a very successful race for us. It's my first stage-race victory (incredibly), and that makes it even better. The team was spectacular throughout the race. We'll go back home very satisfied indeed."

Orbea achieved what they set out to do today, namely keeping hold of Mikel Ilundain's sprint jersey. As for the stage itself, Mikel Landa was best of the youngsters in 25th place 2:58 back and just ahead of Romain. Jon Izagirre was 35th at 5:28, Joseba Larralde 52nd at 11:38, while Beñat Urain, Mikel Ilundain and Aritz Etxebarria all ended up 18:25 in arrears. Xabier Zabalo finished dead last at 23:02. Ricardo Garcia did not complete the race. Landa and Izagirre occupied the same placings on GC as they did on the stage, while Larralde was 65th, Etxebarria 95th, Ilundain 99th, Urain 100th and Zabalo 101st. In the team rankings they finished up 12th.