Astana spoils the party in Puertos

Today's Clásica a los Puertos became a battle between two teams; Euskaltel and Astana. Unfortunately, Astana once again showed they were the strongest by out-manouvring Iñigo, Igor, Mikel, Amets, Egoi and the rest to take the win. The hilly race saw a flurry of attacks from the whole team, and especially Igor, Iñigo and Mikel looked good. Leipheimer and Contador were just too strong in the end for our boys, who had to make do with Iñigo's fifth place as the best result. Igor did well to claim 9th, while Mikel, Rubén, Egoi, Iván and Amets were not far behind in 12th, 13th, 17th, 27th and 29th respectively. Alán ended up in 44th place. Looking at the results, it seems obvious that Iñigo will get to ride the Vuelta. He's in awesome form, he's just, like a number of riders on the team, missing out on the wins. If he can hold his form for a little while longer though, his first win of the season must be right round the corner.