BAHRAIN VICTORIOUS SECURE ITZULIA BASQUE COUNTRY PODIUM FINISH WITH MIKEL LANDA
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| Mikel Landa defended the second spot in the general classification on the conclusive day of the Itzulia Basque Country, behind the yellow jersey Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo Visma), who also took the final stage victory. |
Stage 6 was short but explosive, with seven climbs packed in 137.8km, starting and finishing in Eibar. Although it didn’t feature the traditional uphill finish, the course remained tough, with barely any flat sections, except for the initial and the final kilometres. |
The leader’s team controlled the race perfectly, putting two men in the initial breakaway and protecting Vingegaard from any attacks that could threaten his leadership. Despite the good teamwork of Bahrain Victorious, pulling in the peloton to support their captain, the Danish champion showed he was the strongest in this race with a powerful attack on the penultimate ascent, going solo until the finish line to take his third win in this 62nd edition of the Basque WorldTour 6-day stage race. Mikel Landa finished the stage with the chasing group, crossing the finish line in 11th place at 49” and keeping his second place safe, 1’12” being Vingegaard, with Ion Izagirre in third place (+1’29”).
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Mikel Landa, who won the overall ranking best Basque rider, is delighted about this result he took on his home race: “I’m happy with this second place. Today the team did super good work defending this result. We missed maybe a stage win, but we worked well with the team we had. We fought every day, and today was a super hard stage. I think we must be happy with this podium finish”.
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Bahrain Victorious Sports Director Neil Stephens commented: |
“After a very complicated last stage, we had a fantastic result. Right from the start, the race exploded, and we had to take control of the race with two Jumbo riders in front, in the breakaway. We had to get the best of all our workers, and luckily they were all on a good day. We worked hard. We did our best to try to make sure that the podium with Mikel was safe. Vingegaard was too strong. He really deserved this win, and we deserved second place. So a very good result for us.”
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