Verdugo cracks top 10 in Romandie

Euskaltel enjoyed another strong, if somewhat unspectacular, showing in today's third stage of the Tour de Romandie. The 157,6km stage to Charmey featured a hilly finale in which Gorka Verdugo placed ninth.

Luís León Sánchez edged a tight sprint with a protesting Gianni Meersman to take the honours, while Bradley Wiggins held on to his overall lead (just!) by a single second over the Rabobank Spaniard. A peloton consisting of 73 riders made it to the line on the same time as Sánchez, among them the aforementioned Verdugo, as well as Landa, Martínez, Azanza and Astarloza. Verdugo looked nice and composed near the front in the finale, but doesn't possess the explosiveness of many of his peers and was forced to settle for a place just inside the top ten.

On GC, everything pretty much remains the same. Wiggins heads up the pack, looking solid in yellow, while Astarloza continued to be the best-placed in orange in 21st place.

Tomorrow's penultimate stage from Bulle to Sion contains three cat.1 climbs, with the last one, the St. Martin, tops out some 25 kilometres from the line.

Stage results:

• (1, Luís León Sánchez (Rabobank), 3:58:29
• 9, Gorka Verdugo, s.t
• 42, Mikel Astarloza, s.t.
• 44, Egoi Martínez, s.t.
• 60, Jorge Azanza, s.t.
• 65, Mikel Landa, s.t.
• 102, Ricardo García, 3:33
• 103, Romain Sicard, s.t.
• 146, Alán Pérez, 6:15

General classification:

• (1, Bradley Wiggins (Sky), 12:40:31
• 21, Mikel Astarloza, 0:18
• 45, Gorka Verdugo, 0:25
• 55, Egoi Martínez, 0:30
• 56, Mikel Landa, 0:32
• 72, Jorge Azanza, 2:54
• 79, Romain Sicard, 4:41
• 107, Ricardo García, 11:16
• 148, Alán Pérez, 26:30

Full results can be found at www.biciciclismo.com here. 

Photo courtesy of www.fundacioneuskadi.com