Euskaltel come up short in Burgos opener

Igor Antón and his Vuelta-bound team-mates made a worrying start to the Vuelta a Burgos on Wednesday.

The 135km opener from Miranda da Ebro to the top of the cat.3 Ojo Guareña was unsurprisingly taken out by Katusha's diminutive Spaniard Daniel Moreno, but more surprising was the absence of Igor Antón and Mikel Landa. The ace climbing duo were not even close, coming in 39 and six seconds adrift respectively. Considering Antón's eighth place overall last year was seen as a disappointing performance and harboured everything but well for that year's Vuelta a España, today's 74th place was equally, if not even more, disappointing.

Gorka Verdugo saved the day for the team with a fine 13th place, while Ricardo García showed himself in the break of the day. The guys from Orbea didn't put on too much of a show either, Carlos Barbero's 22nd place by far their best placing.

Stage one results (Orbea riders in cursive):

• (1, Daniel Moreno (Katusha), 3:03:09)
• 13, Gorka Verdugo, 0:02
• 22, Carlos Barbero, 0:06
• 39, Mikel Landa, s.t.
• 52, Iván Velasco, s.t.
• 63, Romain Sicard, 0:26
• 68, Juan José Oroz, 0:39
• 73, Mikel Astarloza, s.t.
• 74, Igor Antón, s.t.
• 83, Aritz Etxebarria, s.t.
• 98, Ricardo García, 1:27
• 121, Jon Aberasturi, 5:20
• 122, Mikel Bizkarra, s.t.
• 124, Omar Fraile, 7:42
• 138, Xabier Zabalo, 9:19
• 139, Aritz Bagües, s.t.
• 141, Haritz Orbe, s.t.

Full results here.

Tomorrow's stage to Burgos is pretty similar to today's. Check out all the stages here.