Bagües makes his mark in Portugal

Aritz Bagües came away from the GP Abimota in Portugal this weekend with the 'Special sprints'-classification in the bag.

Orbea sent an eight-man team to the three-day Gran Premio Abimota, featuring Jon Aberasturi, Mikel Bizkarra, Andoni Blázquez, Aritz Etxebarria, Aritz Bagües, Xavier Zabalo, Haritz Orbe and Omar Fraile. But while the team failed to grab any significant stage placings over the three days, Bagües made sure the race wasn't a total write-off for the blue team with the classification win mentioned above.

22-year-old Bagües gathered six points over the weekend, enough to hold off team-mate Blázquez by one point and Gios-Deyser's once-promising Salvador Guardiola by three. The native of San Sebastián, who made the move to Orbea ahead of the 2011 season after a promising campaign with Bidelan, has struggled for results so far in his Orbea career, and will undoubtedly look to kick on after his classification win in Portugal.

Aberasturi was unsurprisingly the rider who bagged the team's top placing, sprinting to sixth on day one. Disgraced former pro Moisés Dueñas took out day two en route to the overall win. Omar Fraile was again the team's highest-placed rider on GC in 17th.

Final general classification:

• (1, Moisés Dueñas (Supermercados Froiz), 11:41:17)
• 17, Omar Fraile, 0:27
• 24, Aritz Bagües, 0:42
• 27, Mikel Bizkarra, 1:01
• 51, Xabier Zabalo, 16:51
• 56, Andoni Blázquez, 21:09
• 65, Haritz Orbe, 25:24
• 67, Aritz Etxebarria, s.t.
• 72, Jon Aberasturi, 30:19

Photo: Iñaki Azanza.