Burgos and Poland round-up

In the third stage of the Vuelta a Burgos today, an 11,2km TTT, Euskaltel once again came up short. A rather disorganized Euskaltel finished tenth out of the fifteen teams participating and ceded a potentially decisive 24 seconds to Movistar and 14 to overall leader Rodríguez's Katusha. As a result of the no-show Samu dropped to fifth on GC, 21 second back on Purito. As a whole the team seem to have improved against the clock individually these last few years, but in the team version of the race against the clock Euskaltel continuously fail to deceive. Finishing dead last in the Giro and in the Tour, and only tenth in, let's admit it, not the hardest of races earlier today leaves a lot to be desired. Anyway all is not lost though as Sunday's queen-stage to the top of the Lagunas de Neila provides a decent chance for Samu to reclaim the leader's jersey. Lagunas de Neila has proved to be a good hunting ground for the team in the past - what with Ibán's win there in 2007 and Samu's win there last year. A repeat performance from the ever-reliable Samu in two days time would go a long way to atone for today's lacklustre team showing.

Orbea didn't have the best of days either finishing a further five seconds down in 11th. As a consequence Ricardo García tumbled out of the top 10 and into 13th overall, 41 seconds in arrears.

Over in Poland the team is more likely to be pleased with its performance. On today's very lumpy queen-stage into Bukowina Tatrzanska Jon Izagirre showed his undoubted talent by finishing 18th inside a small four-man group containing Nordhaug, a certain Peter Sagan and Oliver Zaugg. The quartet come home just 13 seconds down on easily the strongest climber in the race: last year's overall champ Dan Martin. Through this excellent performance, Izagirre jr. now occupies a lofty 17th on GC heading into tomorrow's concluding stage. On a bad note, Fernández and Castroviejo both failed to finish the stage. The former is still suffering from injuries sustained in that high-speed crash on stage two and finally had to give into the pain, while no explanation was given for Castroviejo's abandonment (and his poor showing leading up to his DNF). Stage results:

• 18, J Izagirre, 0:13
• 39, J Azanza, 2:05
• 69, P Cazaux, 11:24
• 80, D Sesma, 14:44
• 90, M Mínguez, 17:23