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Valverde, Landa + a significant portion of Eusebio Unzué's men's team - alongside Spanish ITT champion Mavi García - start their short training camp at the Rafa Nadal Sports Centre with a training ride towards the Puig de Sant Salvador, finish of the opening trophy in the Challenge Mallorca (Thursday 31st).

Staying since last Sunday at the Rafa Nadal Sports Centre in Manacor (Mallorca, Spain), a dozen riders from the men’s Movistar Team, under the direction of Chente García Acosta and Pablo Lastras, shared on Monday their first training ride together before the imminent start of the Challenge Mallorca on Thursday, with the first trophy finishing atop the Mirador de Sant Salvador.

The climb was the ending point of a session which featured the Telefónica-backed squad’s two Balearic members – Lluís Mas and Mavi García – alongside World Champion Alejandro Valverde and Mikel Landa. The ride also included Carlos Verona, Jürgen Roelandts, Imanol Erviti, Antonio Pedrero, Nelson Oliveira and José Joaquín Rojas, all to be joined in the next few hours by Daniele Bennati.

The Movistar Team’s ‘mini-stage’ also serves a logistic goal in helping the Blues fulfil technical appointments with their sponsors, three of which –Oakley, ISDIN and Victory Endurance– were already notably visible on Monday.