Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) won the queen stage of the Vuelta a Andalucia, widening the gap between him and the rest of the riders. For Caja Rural, Sergio Pardilla managed to be in the top 10, making it the third time this happens for the team in the Andalusian tour, and Pello Bilbao, present in the escape, made it to the podium as the King of the Mountain, the team’s fifth this year.

After a complex start to the race due to the mass crash that took place on the first day, the team is slowly but steadily turning the situation around and the Caja Rural-Seguros RGA team is starting to show what it’s made of.

Eugenio Goikoetxea, the team director, summed up the stage as it finished: “We can safely say that it was a good stage, we won the mountains jersey thanks to Pello and a top 10 place due to Sergio. Now it’s time to keep on fighting, but it looks like we are finally making a comeback after such an unlucky start. Lets see if we can defend Pello’s jersey, though it won’t be easy, keeping in mind Contador’s current situation and the stages ahead, but we will try”.

Pello Bilbao, one of the stars of the stage, expressed his happiness: “I feel good, I arrived a little scatterbrained, but I’ve recovered from my fall, which is good news. Thanks to the team’s hard work, those of us who fell are on the mend. The escape took place on a steep slope before arriving at the stage’s first mountain. I saw that it was a good escape and, coming from the back, I was able to catch up to them. Once I had done that, I felt strong enough and decided to fight for the mountain prize. Now we have to defend it and, in order to do that, I will have to escape again tomorrow, which is no easy task, but we will definitely try. I’m happy I made it to the podium, after the fall on the first day we now have an interesting objective”.

Sergio Pardilla, on his part, finished 10th in the stage and felt “good during the stage. But as we neared the last mountain pass I was in a lot of pain so I had to ease up as we started the final 7 kilometres and just ride at my pace. I eventually started feeling well and was able to minimise the time loss that I suffered at the beginning of the final mountain pass. Personally, I’m not happy about the result, but I’m not unhappy about it either. I feel better, day by day, and I can’t compare myself to riders like Contador and Froome.”  

Volta Algarve
Tony Martin (Etixx-Quick Step) won the Algarve time trial and Geraint Thomas (Sky) consolidated his leadership. Omar Fraile was the best of the Caja Rural-Seguros RGA team in the time trial as well as in the general classification.