Euskaltel fail to show in Canada

Euskaltel didn't get their Canadian adventure off to the best of starts on Friday night as Simon Gerrans romped to a predictable win at the GP Québec.

The orange team showed up with a host of stars, including Mikel Nieve, the Izagirre brothers, Egoi Martínez, Peio Bilbao, Alan Pérez, Jorge Azanza and Miguel Minguez, but only the latter showed his worth.

The lanky 24-year-old from Bilbao came in with the first chase group at only four seconds off Gerrans' time to grab a creditable 17th in a high-class field. Martínez, G Izagirre and Nieve were all way back, while the remaining quartet called it quits underway.

The same eight riders are set to line up on Sunday for the slightly more demanding GP Montréal. Samuel Sánchez was the team's top finisher last year in 17th, while Minguez was also then not too far off in 32nd.

Check out the start list and parcours for Sunday's race here!

Results GP Québec:

• (1, Simon Gerrans (Orica-GreenEdge), 4:53:04)
• 17, Miguel Minguez, 0:04
• 44, Egoi Martínez, 0:45
• 93, Gorka Izagirre, 4:41
• 95, Mikel Nieve, 5:18
• DNF: Peio Bilbao, Alan Pérez, Ion Izagirre, Jorge Azanza

The day before, the Challenge Sprint Pro was held. Home rider Zach Bell of SpiderTech came away with the big prize, ousting countryman Remi Pelletier-Roy in the atypical race. Alan Pérez was Euskaltel's representative, but apparently didn't get very far. Read a quick recap of the sprint race here.

Photo: Karlis Medrano