Euskaltel-Euskadi / 2011 season

This article describes the successes and the team of the Euskaltel-Euskadi team in the 2011 season.

Season course

The 2011 season began for the team at the Tour Down Under , in which the Basques were immediately active. At the Cancer Council Classic, the starting criterion for the Tour Down Under, Gorka Izagirre was the first attacker and thus brought about the breakaway group of the day, which was only caught five laps (one lap of 1.7 kilometers) before the finish. On the first stage he was again one of the first attackers, but was quickly caught up again. Then a group went to Miguel Mínguez and Jon Izaguirre . As the lead shrank, Simon Clarke attacked 30 kilometers from the finish and Minguez was the only one to follow, but they were caught nine kilometers from the finish. In the mass sprint, Iñaki Isasi sprinted eighth place. On the sixth and last stage, Isasi was again on the offensive, but was quickly caught again. In the overall ranking, Gorka Izagirre achieved twelfth place through constant driving style, and sixth place in the junior ranking.

On February 6, Koldo Fernández sprinted eighth place in a strong field at the Trofeo Palma de Mallorca as part of the Mallorca Challenge , which consists of five individual races. In the third race of the series, the Trofeo Inca , Gorka Izagirre managed a good ninth place in the sprint from the first large group. The next day, at the Trofeo Deià , he was able to top this result. He only had to admit defeat to José Joaquín Rojas Gil in the sprint and finished second. In the last race, the Trofeo Magaluf-Palmanova , Euskaltel was active. After some time a trio formed around Iñaki Isasi . In the toughest climb of the day, another trio around Mikel Landa and Gorka Izagirre was able to catch up, but the now six-person leading group was quickly caught up again. Later in the race Jon Izaguirre and Jonathan Castroviejo attacked , but they were overtaken ten kilometers from the finish. In the sprint only a 15th place jumped out by Rubén Pérez .

On the first stage of the Tour du Haut-Var it was again Gorka Izagirre who showed his good early form. He got a good sixth place. On the second stage he was 16th, which he reached tenth place in the overall standings.

Samuel Sánchez celebrated his debut of the season at the Ruta del Sol . On the second stage, Romain Sicard went on the offensive and pulled away with four companions. At the Puerto de Polopos (14.4 km à 7.3%), however, Javier Ramírez took off as a soloist and his former companions were caught up with. Pablo Urtasun tried it on the next stage . However, his undertaking was also unsuccessful. After a solid tour and a seventh place in the third and a second place in the fifth stage, on which he only had to admit defeat to Óscar Freire and thus just missed his first win of the season, Sánchez was ninth in the overall classification of the tour.

On the first stage from Paris – Nice , Gorka Izagirre and Damien Gaudin formed a breakaway duo , which at times had an advantage of over eight minutes. However, both were caught again 40 kilometers from the finish. On the fifth stage, Samuel Sanchez was able to stay in the group of favorites, which ended up with eight drivers. As the strongest sprint of the favorites, he went as the favorite to win the day on the last meters, but when he wanted to pass Andreas Klöden he had a technical problem, which caused him to lose speed and therefore had to admit defeat to Klöden. As a result, he also just missed the overall lead. The next day there was an individual time trial, with Sanchez losing 1:43 minutes on the day's winner Tony Martin and now eighth in the overall standings. On the seventh stage he had to admit defeat again after attacking from the group for the favorites. At the finish he was only five seconds short of the runaway Rémy Di Gregorio . In the overall standings, he improved to sixth place. In the escape group on the last stage, Izagirre showed up again, who would later play an important role. On the last ascent of the tour, Sanchez was the only one from the circle of the top 10 initiative to show and attacked. Izagirre let himself fall back and helped Sanchez on the descent to the former leading group, from which Thomas Voeckler and Diego Ulissi had run away. In the sprint for 3rd place out of the group, it became clear that the race to catch up had left its mark on Sanchez. Julien El-Farès snatched third place from him to protect his captain Rein Taaramäe , with success. In the overall standings, Sanchez only managed to overtake Jean-Christophe Péraud , on the Estonian Taaramäe he was missing three seconds at the end, which he would have made up for third place at the finish of the stage with the time credit Satisfied overall ranking.

At the Tirreno-Adriatico there was a setback in the team time trial at the beginning. The team took last place. On the second stage, Francisco Javier Aramendia was in the breakaway group, which was up to 7:30 minutes ahead due to a level crossing, as the field had to wait two minutes on this, but in the end the group had no chance against the field that was approaching. Before that, Aramendia had won the two mountain classifications of the day, the reward was the lead in the mountain classifications . Daniel Sesma drove a long solo escape the next day, which ended 30 kilometers from the finish. After the fifth stage, Aramendia has to give up the mountain tour again. In the final individual time trial, Jonathan Castroviejo showed his qualities and finished eighth, just 25 seconds behind time trial world champion Fabian Cancellara . In the overall standings he was the best of the team in ninth place.

After the first stage of the Tour of Catalonia was won by a soloist, Rubén Pérez's attempt to break away was under bad omen. The sprinter teams had learned something new and never left the group more than six minutes away and caught up with them 25 kilometers from the finish. There was still a wage for the work for Pérez, who won the two intermediate sprints and thus sat at the top of the sprint ranking. On the fourth stage he tried everything to defend this jersey and succeeded. After the first sprint classification was passed by the closed field and he decided it for me thanks to the preparatory work of his team, he also made the jump into the breakaway group of the day and thus also won the second sprint classification. However, the group failed again. On the fifth stage it took a long time for a group to break away for the first time. Miguel Minguez was in this group, but the escape was over after a few kilometers. So again the closed field came to the first intermediate sprint and Pérez was able to extend his lead with a victory. He also got involved in the final sprint and in the end was only narrowly beaten by Samuel Dumoulin and José Joaquín Rojas Gil . With the renewed victory in the first sprint classification, which came 2.5 kilometers after the start of the sixth stage, he finally secured the jersey. At the end of the stage he finished seventh.

In the spring classics, the team drove mostly unobtrusively. Only the Flèche Wallonne stands out . At the “Wall of Huy” Samuel Sanchez came third and Igor Anton fifth. In addition, there is a tenth place by Sanchez near Liège-Bastogne-Liège . In smaller classics, the team was able to achieve better results, so Sanchez won the Gran Premio Miguel Induráin . When Klasika Primavera was Amets Txurruka seventh and Mikel Nieve eighth in the Gran Premio de Llodio .

In the time of the classics, the focus of the team was mainly on the domestic Tour of the Basque Country . On the first stage, Samuel Sanchez only had to admit defeat to Joaquim Rodríguez and finished second. After Egoi Martínez had tried in vain on the third stage, the all-important stage victory finally succeeded on the fourth stage. After trying in vain several times on the last mountain and in the subsequent descent to the finish, he started the all-important attack on the last kilometer and was able to win the stage with two bike lengths ahead. In the overall standings he was still third, at the same time as Rodriguez and Klöden. In the final individual time trial, however, he lost 1:17 minutes on 13th and thus fell back to sixth place in the overall standings.

At the Vuelta a Castilla y León Rubén Rérez again showed his skills as a sprinter. He came in third, fifth and tenth. Overall, he was fourth in the points classification. At the mountain finish on the third stage, Igor Anton was fourth, which brought him to third place in the overall standings. In the only 11.2 kilometer long individual time trial, he achieved a good result for him by finishing sixth, just 20 seconds behind Alberto Contador , thus defending his third place overall, which he also managed on the flat last stage.

The Tour de Romandie started with a bang. Jonathan Castroviejo took his first victory in a UCI WorldTour race . He prevailed against established time trialists like David Millar and won the prologue. When he reached the mountain on the first stage, however, he had to give up the overall lead again. Gorka Verdugo stayed in the group of favorites and moved up to sixth place in the overall standings. On the next stage he was even able to improve by one place, but he showed weaknesses in the individual time trial on the fourth stage and lost over two minutes. Castroviejo was again strong and finished ninth. At the end of the tour, Verdugo was 17th best in the overall classification.

The team started the Vuelta a Asturias with no real favorites , but they managed to achieve some good results. In the sprint on the first stage, Iñaki Isasi finished seventh and Gorka Izagirre tenth, on the first part of the two-part second stage, Rubén Pérez, after having tried Juan José Oroz , finished sixth in the sprint and fourth on the fourth stage. In the overall standings, Gorka Izagirre was the 15th best of the team.

Success in the World Tour

date	run	driver
7th of April	4th stage of the Tour of the Basque Country 2011	Samuel Sánchez
26th of April	Prologue Tour de Romandie	Jónathan Castroviejo
May 21	14th stage of the Giro d'Italia	Igor Antón
May 22	15th stage of the Giro d'Italia	Mikel Nieve
July 14th	12th stage Tour de France	Samuel Sánchez
the 9th of September	19th stage of the Vuelta a España	Igor Antón

Success in the Europe Tour

date	run	driver
2nd of April	Gran Premio Miguel Induráin	Samuel Sánchez
May 7th	Prologue Vuelta a Madrid	Jónathan Castroviejo
3rd August	1st stage Burgos Tour	Samuel Sánchez
August 7th	5th stage Burgos Tour	Mikel Landa

Additions Disposals

Accesses	Team 2010	Departures	Team 2011
Pierre Cazaux	FDJ	Beñat Intxausti	Movistar team
Jon Izaguirre	Orbea	Aitor Galdós	Caja Rural
Mikel Landa	Orbea	Sergio de Lis	End of career
Pello Bilbao (from March 1st)	Orbea Continental	Aitor Hernández	Unknown
Mikel Astarloza (from June 27th)	Euskaltel-Euskadi (2009)

team

Surname	birthday	origin
Igor Antón	March 2, 1983	Spain
Francisco Javier Aramendia	5th December 1986	Spain
Mikel Astarloza	17th November 1979	Spain
Jorge Azanza	June 16, 1982	Spain
Pello Bilbao	February 25, 1990	Spain
Jónathan Castroviejo	April 27, 1987	Spain
Pierre Cazaux	June 7, 1984	France
Koldo Fernández	September 13, 1981	Spain
Iñaki Isasi	April 20, 1977	Spain
Jon Izaguirre	4th February 1989	Spain
Gorka Izagirre	October 7, 1987	Spain
Mikel Landa	December 13, 1989	Spain
Egoi Martínez	May 15, 1978	Spain
Miguel Mínguez	August 30, 1988	Spain
Mikel Nieve	May 26, 1984	Spain
Juan José Oroz	July 11, 1980	Spain
Alan Perez	July 15, 1982	Spain
Rubén Pérez	October 30, 1981	Spain
Samuel Sánchez	5th February 1978	Spain
Daniel Sesma	June 18, 1984	Spain
Romain Sicard	January 1, 1988	France
Amets Txurruka	November 10, 1982	Spain
Pablo Urtasun	March 29, 1980	Spain
Iván Velasco	February 7, 1980	Spain
Gorka Verdugo	4th November 1978	Spain

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Tour Down Under 2011 live-radsport.ch, accessed on September 7, 2011
2. ↑ Mallorca Challenge 2011 live-radsport.ch, accessed on September 7, 2011
3. ↑ Tour du Haut-Var 2011 radsportseiten.net, accessed on September 7, 2011
4. ↑ Ruta del Sol 2011 live-radsport.ch, accessed on September 8, 2011
5. ^ Paris – Nice 2011 live-radsport.ch, accessed on September 9, 2011
6. ^ Tirreno – Adriatico 2011 live-radsport.ch, accessed on September 9, 2011
7. ↑ Tour of Catalonia 2011 live-radsport.ch, accessed on September 12, 2011
8. ↑ Tour of the Basque Country 2011 live-radsport.ch, accessed on September 12, 2011
9. ↑ Vuelta a Castilla y León 2011 live-radsport.ch, accessed on September 12, 2011
10. ↑ Tour de Romandie 2011 live-radsport.ch, accessed on September 12, 2011
11. ↑ Vuelta a Asturias 2011 live-radsport.ch, accessed on September 12, 2011

Web links

• Euskaltel-Euskadi / season 2011 in the database of Radsportseiten.net