Notes

• Samuel Sánchez will not be present at Sunday's Klasika Primavera to defend his title. Euskaltel will still send a strong team, though, consisting of Antón, Nieve, Sicard, Isasi, Velasco, Martínez, Txurruka, Oroz, R Pérez and Verdugo. The man himself, Igor González de Galdeano, will lead the team in this final race of the 'Basque week'. Good to see Romain Sicard having sufficiently recovered from his Catalunya crash and back in action.


• Juan José Oroz's wife, Josune Murillo (a former rider herself), yesterday gave birth to the couple's first child, a boy. After completing yesterday's second stage into Lekunberri, the dependable domestique jumped straight into his car and got to the hospital just in time. The boy and his mother are both reported to be just fine.


• The injury-prone Koldo Fernández is back in training and aiming for a return to competition at the GP Llodio on the 23rd of April, Deia and El Correo report. While admitting his form is everything but good at the moment, the sprinter is hoping racing and long, hard training rides will get him back into shape by early summer. That 'early summer' is likely to include the tours of Romandie, Madrid and Suisse, as well as the Dauphiné. His broken right collarbone is not causing him any problems anymore, but one of his fingers in his right hand, which was also fractured in Andalucía, is still troubling him somewhat.


• Euskaltel put in a decent performance in today's penultimate big Belgian classic; the Scheldeprijs. Jon Izagirre, riding these races for the very first time, performed admirably to place 27th on the same time as Cavendish, who took out the win in a crash-marred sprint. Sesma and Aramendía both did well to come in just 20 seconds back in 53rd and 58th place respectively, while Gorka Izagirre ended up 32 down, A Pérez and Minguez 50 down, and Castroviejo and Cazaux 55. The Frenchman even tried to join up with the main break early on, but an untimely pinchazo put paid to that try. The same eight riders will line up in tomorrow's GP Pino Cerami.