"Worlds course suits me"

Samuel Sánchez won't be the Fundación Euskadi's sole representative at the upcoming World Championships. 22-year-old Omar Fraile of Orbea has been selected to ride the individual time trial by national team coach José Luis De Santos, and the promising stage-racer says the course should favour him.

"The recorrido is very hard and contains hard climbs, so it should be good for me", he told 200 Pulsaciones. "If my task was to make the course, I'd make it just like this! The Spanish National Championships time trial and the crono at the Volta a Portugal were also quite long. After completing the race in Portugal I took a short break, returned to training motivated and I'm still feeling very good".

Bilbao-born Fraile deemed himself "very happy" with being given the chance to represent Spain at such a big occasion, saying "it's every cyclist's dream". Fraile signed a contract with the Fundación last year, a contract that would see him ride for Orbea for one year before taking the step up to Euskaltel and the WorldTour at the start of 2013. With Miguel Madariaga's foundation now set to step back and telephone company Euskaltel set to assume full control of the team, no one seems to be really sure where that leaves Fraile from 2013 and beyond. His performances in the latter half of the season have given proof he's ready for the step-up though, and Fraile admits his recent 16th overall at the Tour of Portugal was a highlight of his season.

"There's been ups and downs this year because of injuries, but overall I'm happy as I was at a good level in Portugal. A crash on the first day forced us to lose a lot of time, so in the remaining stages we were looking to recover the lost time. I ended up 16th and the experience was therefore a good one, I'm satisfied".