Klasika Primavera Amorebieta today, traditional post-País Vasco one-dayer around Beñat Intxausti's hometown. It's been running since the 40s, and continuously since 1955. List of past winners includes Miguel Poblet, Antonio Karmany, Francisco Gabica, Txomin Perurena, Andrés Oliva, Vicente López Carril, Federico Echave, Laurent Jalabert, Roberto Heras, Alejandro Valverde, Carlos Sastre (!).
The field has suffered in recent years as with much of the Spanish calendar; there are only a few ProConti teams along with Movistar in town, the fact that it's literally the day after País Vasco finishes seems to count more against it, whereas a better field takes on the pre-Itzulia races.
José Herrada won last year but isn't racing; Valverde therefore wears bib number 1. Movistar have much of their País Vasco team in, but with the Izagirre brothers recovered from their bout of gastroenteritis. Caja Rural are led by 2014 winner Pello Bilbao, although they also have Carlos Barbero for a fast finish. Catalunya breakout Hugh Carthy is back in action as well. ONE are around with their lineup who seem to be hoping it will stay together a bit more than anticipated around Steele von Hoff, although Karol Domagalski is ex-of Caja Rural so will know these roads well. The Portuguese teams are there in numbers; de la Fuente will lead Sporting, W52 have attack king Antonio Carvalho, former Euskaltel rider Ricardo Mestre and Rafa Reis; Boavista probably have Frederico Figueiredo as their best option (no Sousa, neither do W52 bring César although in fairness one-day racing is not his thing) and Louletano have Vicente García de Mateos and Sandro Pinto. No LA, frustratingly, after being the only Portuguese team to do anything at Algarve. The Spanish Continental teams also provide some names, but since David Belda left Burgos-BH not as much chance of upsetting the apple cart. Jesús del Pino and Pablo Torres perhaps their best bets while the local team of Euskadi-Murias will obviously be active, even if only Garikoitz Bravo is a likely threat. Beñat Txoperena, Aritz Bagües and Mikel Bizkarra are all reasonably good riders who can do something though, while I really hope for Aitor González (but not THAT Aitor González) to have some decent showings in the coming stage races. Then you have the not-Spanish Continental teams, the ones like Inteja-MMR and Dare, which are either Spanish based foreign registered teams like the former, or half-and-half teams like the latter who have a bunch of Serbian riders that do Serbian races and a bunch of Spanish riders that do Spanish races. Adopted Republic-of-Dominican Diego Millán probably the only rider of real note from these. Then there's Massi-Kuwait and God only knows what their team is like; then the true extranjeros, Lokosphinx (Shilov and the Vdovin brothers) and Manzana-Postobon to bring some Colombian flavour.
There are three laps of a climby circuit at the end with two decent mountains.
The break of the day featured Javier Aramendia among others, but now we have a strange situation after the first ascent of Montecalvo where the pace pushed on the descent has meant that Alejandro Valverde, Giovanni Visconti, Gorka Izagirre and Sergio Pardilla have now pulled a gap.
Sounds like the quartet made it to the finish, obviously Pardilla either cut a deal or, given they outnumbered him 3 to 1 and he's the weakest sprinter in the group, Movistar just tripled up on the TTT and unsurprisingly given they're the biggest and best team in the race that was enough as the climbs aren't long enough to drop Gorka who was meant to be in form for his home race before getting sick, and Visconti and Valverde are former winners of the race. Given the results, it does seem like a deal was cut for Pardilla to get a podium place, with Valverde coming in 4th who would beat him 100% of the time in a head to head sprint and would do it more if it was mathematically possible, and a photo from the Caja Rural twitter of the two of them arm-in-arm post-race. Visconti won the sprint, because of course he did. As reigning GPM winner at the Giro and a B-threat in the Ardennes he'll be wanting to build up form here and was looking pretty strong yesterday in the Itzulia as well. Caja Rural's sprint options got in each other's way in the chase so it's another of Shilov's annual placement races.
1 Giovanni Visconti (Movistar) ITA 3'56'44
2 Gorka Izagirre Insausti (Movistar) ESP +st
3 Sérgio Pardilla Bellón (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) ESP +st
4 Alejandro Valverde Belmonte (Movistar) ESP +st
5 Sergey Shilov (Lokosphinx) RUS +1'33
6 Carlos Barbero Cuesta (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) ESP +1'33
7 Pello Bilbao López de Armentia (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) ESP +1'33
8 Karol Andrzej Domagalski (ONE Pro Cycling) POL +1'33
9 Dmitry Sokolov (Lokosphinx) RUS +1'33
10 César Fonte (Radio Popular-Boavista) POR +1'33
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