Galdeano - I regret the handling of Txurruka

While Igor González de Galdeano has received a fair bit of criticism by doing away with Euskaltel's unique Basque-only philosophy, he's perhaps received equally much flak for doing away with Amets Txurruka.

Galdeano still stands by his decision to sign a host of foreigners to his "new" team in 2013, but has finally admitted he could have handled the Txurruka case better.

"I regret the handling of Amets Txurruka", he told Vavel. "I wasn't able to measure the impact of him leaving Euskaltel. As for the rest, no (I don't regret releasing him). What we did was strictly for sporting reasons. Euskadi is a small country where everyone speaks about everyone, and it seems that decisions that are taken are always taken for another reason. I was the one who brought Amets from Barloworld to Euskaltel, but the time came when I though we needed a change. In fact, with his new team he's said he wants to return to the one he was before. Still though, I recognize I didn't successfully handle his non-renewal".

To further his point, Galdeano went on to claim that if Txurruka really is that valuable, another WorldTour team would have picked him up.

"The team gave him every chance to show he should be kept on, and if he didn't do that it was only down to sporting reasons. In fact, if he was at the level they say he is, he would now have been at another WorldTour team. And saying he was informed late on in the year doesn't really matter. Three years ago he told me he had an offer to jump ships, and I regarded that as completely normal. This is a professional world, the elite, but when someone touches him, it's apparently an injustice. No one should feel that they've got a guaranteed spot on the team just through being Basque".

Photo: Deia