Giro d`Italia stage 6&7 round-up

Due to maintenance work on blogspot, I haven`t been able to update the blog for a couple of days. But luckily it`s been two rather quiet days in Italy so you haven`t missed out on a lot. On Thursday Euskaltel kept a low profile. Jorge Azanza was quite active on the stage into Fuiggi and looked good in the latter part of the race but he didn`t succeed in getting into any good moves. Along with Isasi, Antón and Nieve he came in with the pack, whilst crash victim Oroz and crossed the line 5:05 down along with Aramendía. Cazaux and Sesma ended up at 7:14 and a battered and bruised Mínguez finished up 17:29 in arrears.

At yesterday`s first summit finish at Montevergine Antón showed he`s up there but still lacking that little bit of form that`ll make him a candidate for a win later on in this race. The diminutive climber came home 21st at the same time as the other GC riders, but he was always at the back of the group and will probably be pleased with the fact he didn`t lose a few seconds. Nieve dropped off inside the last k and ceded 17 seconds. Aramendía and Cazaux were both quite aggressive early on in the unusually short stage and gave a good account of themselves. But the effort told and they both rolled in with the gruppetto at 15:09. Azanza was 2:50 back, Isasi 7:57, Minguez 10:05 and Oroz and Sesma 12:43. Overall Antón is 24th at just 1:15, so no surprise he was a happy man when speaking to the team`s website afterwards. "I`m pleased as I felt good and there`s a lot of racing still to be done", he stated. "But the stage started out very nervously and I didn`t feel good approaching the final climb. But once we started going upwards I felt better and we were where we ought to be. As I said a couple of days ago I`m still missing a tiny bit, but overall I`m pleased with my level and the stage went according to plan".