Bruseghin’s labour accomplished
10 September 2011

Enormous stage by the Italian, on the break almost from the start to get 2nd at Bilbao's finish behind local hero Antón (EUS) in the return of the Vuelta to Euskadi. Movistar Team shine in Québec, with Rui Costa 11th and Herrada as KOM winner after a long breakaway Despite staying in the race with only four riders -Intxausti and Erviti out of energy- after a disgraced gastroenteritis blowing the squad, Movistar Team is still showing brave in the 2011 Vuelta a España. The group was again in the moves today during the event's stagr 19, in the return of the race to the Basque Country, as Marzio Bruseghin was part of the breakway leading the group from the 33th kilometer out of 158 on the way from Noja to Bilbao. Locals Antón and Verdugo (EUS) and Kazakh Alexandr Dyachenko (AST) went apart with Brus in an attempt that took more than four minutes over the bunch before the two decisive climbs to the Alto del Vivero (Cat. 2), the group later launching a pursuit that menaced the escape until the very end of its adventure. The Movistar Team rider took responsibilities all over the first ascent, but couldn't follow the pace by Igor Antón in the final, decisive climb and couldn't either make up the 30-second gap Antón was gaining through the summit. At Bilbao, Bruseghin came with a 40-second loss to the winner and the same gap with the GC group, which allowed him jump into 14th overall, a short gain compared to the valiant character showed by the Italian in his second part of the Vuelta, which is set to live its penultimate chapter on Saturday over a 176k trek from Bilbao to Vitoria.

Marzio Bruseghin: “I don’t feel like I’ve lost the stage. When someone is stronger than you, you don’t lose. He’s the one who wins it, and the strongest today was Igor Antón. The entering in Euskadi was really emotive, a festival of cycling I will remember forever. I was pushing through the first climb on my own pace, and that was the reason I couldn’t win. In such a climb, it’s not important to stay on front or take the others’ wheel. The main trouble for me in this Vuelta was that it decided too soon for me, because I tend to get stronger day by day. Stages are short, with explosive finishes, and I trust my stamina more. Except for the Peña Cabarga stage, which was more suited to experienced riders, the other stages were full of climbs that were too short for me.”


Great Blue performance in GP Québec
Meanwhile, at the other side of the Atlantic, the eight ‘american’ riders from Movistar Team offered their best level during the 2nd GP Cycliste de Québec, the first of two UCI World Tour races on Canadian soil over a 201k circuit race that attended another exhilarating victory by Walloon cannibal Philippe Gilbert (OLO), after breaking the race into the last of the 16 laps into the Québecoise event. In the beginning of the race, Spaniard Jesús Herrada showed again the qualities that took him to brilliance in his first pro season after being the last of the day’s three escapees -more than 140k into an attempt that started in lap 2 and took him to gain points enough to win the KOM classification of the race- to be caught after the peloton conceeded them a 6-minute maximum gap. The attacks by an outstanding Luis Pasamontes and Rui Costa into the final 40k of the race -the last of those allowing the Portuguese rider coming after the final top-ten (11th), a 10-man group going away for victory- made José Joaquín Rojas take things easier for the finale, where he could however earn only a 21st place.