Monday, July 08, 2013

Tour de France shorts















It's a welcome day off for the Tour peloton on Monday, and time to catch up on smaller events in and around Euskaltel.

Ion Izagirre had a decent ride on Sunday and seems to be on the up. A few days ago he took two minutes of his time to answer Spanish sports daily AS' questions. Asked what he'd be doing if he wasn't a cyclist, the youngest of the brothers revealed he'd probably be a pelota player.

Check out the entertaining video interview here.

What with an opening day mountains jersey, a Lobato on fire in the bunch sprints and consistent, if unspectacular, riding in the Pyrenees, the Tour so far has been relatively successful from an Euskaltel point of view - but it's not showing in the list of prize money handed out.

The team has only become 5000 euro richer since the start of the Tour. Omega Pharma-QuickStep top with their 32 000, while only three teams have earned less than 'the carrots'.

See the full list here.

Ricardo García might not be riding in France, but he's certainly getting the kilometres in. Having ridden for four and a half hours and climbed some 3000 metres on Sunday, he posted the following picture of himself on his Twitter account:


Juan José Lobato has been the surprise package in the sprint finishes this year. As we all know it's not too often a rider in orange mixes it up with the fastest of the fastest, and quite a few Twitter cycling celebrities found it quite amusing to see an Euskaltel man close to the action on the flat stages.


2 comments:

Stephen said...

Not a bad opening week, shortish TT should not do too much damage so still hope for at least one in the top ten.

Heggar said...

I agree, it's been a good tour so far. They've been visible in the breakes, and also in the mountains. It was very nice to see three organge shirts for a long time in the peleton on Sunday, usually it's only one shirt(Samu/Nieve). The disappointment for me would have to be the Izagirre brothers, but I think they have been a bit unlucky with injuries and mechanical problems. Lobato has done very well and the next few stages could suit him well.

 

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