Egoi strikes gold

It's an historic day for the team: for the first time ever, an Euskaltel Euskadi rider is leading a Grand Tour. And that rider is our beloved Egoi Martínez. My oh my what a day. But let's rewind for a moment; here's how today's stage unfolded: The stage started with a flurry of attacks, with our own Amets and Egoi between them. They were momentarily reeled back in, but when Egoi jumped away with eventual winner Van Avermaet, the break of the day had been established. A further 9 riders joined in, with Alán being one of them. The break quickly got a nice, big gap back to the Astana-led peloton, and it became clear that the Kazakh team weren't going to pull out all the stops to defend it. Egoi was 16th overall going into the stage, and was thus the highest-ranked rider in the breakaway. The team realised they had the chance of a lifetime to grab the golden fleece, so Egoi wasn't letting any chances of taking a few bonus seconds here and there slip away. He grabbed 10 on the stage to increase his chances of donning the overall leader's jersey at day's end. Alán, though, was essential in Egoi's quest for gold. He totally burried himself at the front of the break to keep the pace high, and really did his utmost to make sure the team got the jersey. Bravo Alán! Egoi and Alán were by now solely concentrated on getting the jersey, not on taking the stage-win. Van Avermaet sprinted to glory at the line, with Egoi coming home at the same time in 10th place. Alán came in 52 seconds later, completely depleted. As the pack got closer and closer to the line it became evident that this one was going to go down to the wire. And it sure did, as Egoi now leads Levi Leipheimer by just 11 seconds. 11 seconds that will forever be etched in the team's history. Congrats Egoi!