Galdeano - The team has been great
Despite missing out on all three targets on the penultimate stage, Igor González de Galdeano was a satisfied man on Saturday afternoon.
Euskaltel's hopes of a stage win, a climber's jersey and a top ten overall went out the window, despite Igor Antón looking solid in the break of the day and Mikel Nieve climbing to 13th on the stage and 12th overall.
That means Euskaltel will finish the Tour without a stage to their name and without a man in the revered top ten.
"Generally it's been good", he told the team's official website. "The team's been at a high level, and we've showed we deserve to be in this race. We would have liked to win a stage, but it wasn't to be. A stage win was our goal and we went all out for it, but it wasn't possible. But that shouldn't distract from our performance and attitude.
"We have to be proud of our performance".
As for the team's future, Galdeano was tightlipped.
"Everyone's done a great job. They've been as professional as ever and really focused on the race at hand. They've kept calm and behaved as normal, despite this less than comfortable situation".
Results:
- (1, Nairo Quintana (Movistar), 3:39:04)
- 13, Mikel Nieve, 3:24
- 30, Igor Antón, 6:42
- 36, Juan José Oroz, 8:39
- 64, Rubén Pérez, 16:47
- 65, Mikel Astarloza, s.t.
- 67, Romain Sicard, 16:49
- 79, Ion Izagirre, 18:26
- 167, Juan José Lobato, 26:59
Photo: BCPT
4 comments:
I agree. The worrying part is the form of Anton. Will he ever return to his best (or are others simply going faster for other reasons...)?
But, with the form they had, they didn't do badly. The main disappointment was the fading of Nieve in stage 19. The weakest performance was the stage to Gap. Other than that, they rode aggressively and tried to take opportunities.
It is not a Tour to remember forever for them, but they've done worse too.
Getting caught at the back with Valverde when the race split was very damaging, if Nieve had been with the Froome group the he would have comfortably been in the top ten, which, realistically, his form deserved.
Lobato for the win today
#keepdreaming
@ arnout (well let's not be blind, probably Anton was going faster for other reasons back in 2010, peleton seems much more clean these days) I've never dared to mention this but I always considered his behaviour after the Vuelta crash as a confession, a man who put off the weight of his shoulders and watched his bad luck as a kind of karma. Said this, his TDF was not so very bad, the biggest mistake he made was not kicking that doping asshole Rolland off his bike after Mister cortisone almost made him crash on purpose. It's not the first time we see this kind of behaviour by Rolland.
Besides that, we never seriouesly crashed this TDF!, and the guys were not so bad, except Astarloza who was selected for reasons unknown. One black day, the day we lost ten minutes on the flat. Nieve was fantastic but had his usual bad day the day he was in the attack (same as Stelvio last year). Sicard and Perez showed some improvement, Ion was irrigular but had some great moments, Oroz was invisible as Always and Gorka went ill. Lobato was a positive surprise. Well it wasn't bad, but only the useless Astarloza replaced by a loyable domestique such as Martinez or Verdugo could have made a big difference. Maybe with someone as Martinez the ten minute loss was never happened...
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