Poor time trial sees Sánchez finish Vuelta al País Vasco on a low

Samuel Sánchez ended up 15th overall at the Vuelta al País Vasco after an underwhelming individual time trial on Saturday.

The Euskaltel team leader, lying eighth overall going into the 24km race against the clock in Beasain, came up with a surprisingly off-colour performance. Sánchez could only muster 48th on the day, a full 3:12 down on stage winner Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-QuickStep). As a result, the defending champion finished the 2013 edition of the race in 15th overall.

On a more positive note, Ion Izagirre showed he's still in decent shape despite a rather low-key race overall for him. The native of nearby Ormaiztegi finished the day as the team's top man, coming in 26th, 28 seconds ahead of team-mate Egoi Martínez in 31st place.

In the team rankings, however, Euskaltel ended up a lowly 12th out of 14 teams - another case in point proving it's been one of the least successful Vuelta al País Vascos in recent memory.

Results (full results here):

• (1, Tony Martin (Omega Pharm-QuickStep), 35:05)
• 26, Ion Izagirre, 2:08
• 31, Egoi Martínez, 2:36
• 41, Romain Sicard, 3:03
• 43, Gorka Izagirre, 3:06
• 48, Samuel Sánchez, 3:12

Final general classification:

• (1, Nairo Quintana (Movistar), 21:39:35)
• 15, Samuel Sánchez, 3:36
• 47, Ion Izagirre, 26:19
• 51, Egoi Martínez, 27:55
• 52, Gorka Izagirre, 28:01
• 63, Romain Sicard, 48:51

Photo: Euskaltel Euskadi