Antón almost there in Murcia

Igor Antón showed his season is on track on Saturday with a strong sixth in the one-day Vuelta a Murcia.

Antón is aiming to reach top form this season earlier than in years past and showed he's close to achieving just that by climbing with the likes of Valverde and Mollema in the south of Spain.

The race finished with a short, sharp cat.3 climb that was supposed to be the decider, but Dani Navarro, who'd attacked some 20 clicks out with five other riders, just about managed to hold off Mollema and Valverde to claim an unlikely victory for his new French team, Cofidis. Antón was in close attendance in sixth at the same time, while Rubén Pérez grabbed 21st and Samuel Sánchez - on his season debut - took 25th.

The Euskadi team made sure their race was a success early on by placing Jon Larrinaga in the day's main break, but Aritz Arberas' charges were never close to mixing it up with the big boys, Mikel Bizkarra's 37th being their top placing. Euskaltel's Pablo Urtasun tried to bridge the gap to Larrinaga's group early on, but fell short and was caught by the pack before posting a DNF.

Euskaltel debutant Tarik Chaoufi also failed to complete the race.

Results (full results here):

• (1, Daniel Navarro (Cofidis), 4:40:32)
• 6, Igor Antón, s.t.
• 21, Rubén Pérez, 0:49
• 25, Samuel Sánchez, 0:53
• 28, Ricardo Mestre, 1:11
• 37, Mikel Bizkarra, 6:37
• 46, Juan José Oroz, 11:57
• 48, Aritz Bagües, 17:22
• 49, Carlos Barbero, s.t.
• 55, Igor Merino, s.t.
• 58, Mikel Iturria, 20:38
• 62, Illart Zuazubiskar, s.t.
• DNF: Unai Iparragirre (Euskadi), Pablo Urtasun, Tarik Chaoufi, Juan José Lobato (Euskaltel)