Vuelta a Madrid (st. 1)

Movistar Team keep winning streak in Madrid's opening stage as Basque makes superb ITT to repeat his triumph in 2011, with Madrazo and Gutiérrez in 4th and 5th

Movistar Team keep adding new success to their excellent 2012 season and grabbed their thirteenth victory of the year thanks to the triumph by Jonathan Castroviejo in the 7.8-kilometer, individual time trial opening the 26th Vuelta a la Comunidad de Madrid in the capital city’s Casa de Campo. The Basque rider opened his victory account with the telephone squad and repeated his win from last year with a colossal performance that allowed him overtaking Russian Artem Ovechkin by 16 seconds and Sergey Firsanov by 24, the Eastern riders being the only ones to avoid an entirely Blue podium, with Ángel Madrazo in 4th -24 seconds back- and Iván Gutiérrez in 5th -26 seconds slower than Castroviejo-.

Castroviejo is breaking this way his bad luck streak in the time trials during 2012, with just a few hundredths of a second avoiding his victory in Murcia -2nd, on the same time of the winner- and La Sarthe -4th, tied with the second and third place holders-. The festival from the squad directed today by Eusebio Unzué and Yvon Ledanois could have been complete, shouldn’t Rubén Plaza missed the correct way into the final kilometer as he clocked the best time at the intermediate point. The race will get decided on Sunday, with the Queen stage departing from Colmenar Viejo and finishing atop the Puerto de Morcuera (Cat. 1), after 182km and three other ascents before the first passage through the line with 70k from the finish of the Vuelta.