No Samu, Nieve or Martínez in Vuelta
BiciCiclismo claim to know the 12 riders in the running for a spot on the Vuelta a España team in August. Samuel Sánchez, Egoi Martínez, Mikel Nieve and Peio Bilbao do not feature on the long-list.
Here are the 12 candidates: Igor Antón, Romain Sicard, Alan Pérez, Amets Txurruka, Mikel Astarloza, Pierre Cazaux, Miguel Minguez, Mikel Landa, Rubén Pérez, Gorka Verdugo, Iván Velasco and Juan José Oroz.
Antón's participation is naturally a given as the race represents his one and only goal of the year. Landa has been down for a berth all season and should feature, and the same goes for Sicard. Astarloza, Txurruka and Verdugo all abandoned the Tour injured, and especially the former and the latter should be in with a good shot given they've not completed any other GTs this year (unlike Txurruka, who rode the Giro d'Italia).
Rubén Pérez is fresh off another Tour finish, while Minguez, Velasco, Oroz and Cazaux all did the Italian GT. A Pérez is, along with Sicard, the only one without a GT in his legs this year, but has been in indifferent form all season and is a question mark form-wise little more than three weeks before the big kick-off.
Unsurprisingly, there'll be no Samuel Sánchez as he'll channel his energies on the Worlds and the late-season WorldTour-races, while Nieve also has a full calendar, including the Canadian races. Martínez will give the race a miss after his phenomenal ride in France, while it's slightly disappointing not to see the precocious Peio Bilbao feature on the list.
Who do you think should make the team?
Photo: Iñaki Azanza
5 comments:
Depends a bit on the recovery of guys like Verdugo and Txurruka, but I think the Perez guys should be skipped for this, they have been in poor form for some time (not only this season), and Ruben of course rode the Tour. In general, Tour finishers shouldn't do the Vuelta, it's too close together this time.
Not happy to see this. Hoped for Samu and or Nieve, Bilbao and Garcia.
Samu and Nieve should both be in there for a support role and to get a stage win for some points. With Nieve not racing since Swiss he should be rested enough. Also with Txurruka and Samu crashing early in the Tour they should be rested enough. Just my opinion.
Yes, I think it's strange as you know they need the points more then ever...
I sure hope Nieve's rested for the Canadian Tours!....Really wished Euskaltel would've changed plans for some Vuelta support!
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