Euskaltel-Euskadi Discussion

[Arnout]

He is their main chance of winning it, it was just an irony hinting on the Ardennes which are made for him. But he constantly builds his spring around Pais Vasco, fails to win it somehow and then does Ardennes on "what's left".

That's because Pais Vasco is more important for them.

 

[Kvinto]

That's because Pais Vasco is more important for them.

No doubt, it is. Just saying.

 

[maltiv]

imo it would be clever to send Astarloza and Nieve to Giro and save Anton for March-April races. he (Anton) will surely get more points there (it is the main issue for Euskaltel i guess) - Catalunya, Ardennes, Romandia (which i read is one of his favourite races), maybe Pais Vasco and Paris-Nice as a co-captain, it would be good for both Anton and the team.

Also, Anton in top shape could be a real threat in Fleche Wallone particularly, where he has been top 5 two years in a row.

 

[Parrulo]

Also, Anton in top shape could be a real threat in Fleche Wallone particularly, where he has been top 5 two years in a row.

indeed, this year one of the cameras shows the peloton crawling up the muur from the back(was already after gilbert's monster attack) and you can clearly see an orange blur coming from what apparently is last place in the peloton at the bottom of the climb to finish fifth

 

[Kvinto]

Yes, Anton in top shape is a great bet for Fleche Wallonne, his come back after being in an awful position in this year's FW was awesome, i took notice of this too. This race suits him pretty much and tbh Amstel is the only Ardennes classic that he has little chances to perform well (Samu could be better there, but Amstel perhaps is the race with one of the biggest competitions, and it requires a top shape even more than FW but as it was mentioned before Pais Vasco is a bigger objective for him). Anton can be very useful as a captain in LBL too, he already showed he can ride with the bests there in 2010, he missed the decisive move (imo he could join Kolobnev) but was pretty good on climbs, so i think if he will not be burdened with Giro participation he can achieve more in spring races. Tbh his 2010 and 2011 schedules are pretty similar, the only noticeable replacement was Giro instead of Romandie but the results were different (due to the moved peak of form of course) - Anton's participation in Giro didn't pay back in general for neither Igor nor Euskaltel. Of course if he was doing Giro for the GC it might have changed this situation but he clearly said that he was going for stages. I think Euskaltel's squad is not deep enough to send their second best GC rider to a GT just for stages so i really hope it won't happen again next year.