Euskaltel-Euskadi 2012 Season in Review

Euskaltel-Euskadi in 2013 will be a team whose value set will have drastically changed from its previous incarnations from 1994 till the present. Funding will be cut by the Basque government although the team was already operating on a budget of €1 Million less than last year. Besides the reduced funding that has forced changes structurally the team will for the first time have riders with no Basque connection. When previously only Basque riders or those who are familiar with the culture have been offered contracts, in 2013 the team will have a continental feel to it as riders with no Basque connection will be welcomed into the team. Whether or not these changes had affected the riders in 2012 is unclear as season 2012 was largely devoid of any significant results in comparison to previous seasons. 
In 2011 Samuel Sánchez won the mountains classification at the Tour de France as well as winning Stage 12 on his way to finishing 5th overall. In 2011 Euskaltel-Euskadi won stages all three Grand Tours but in 2012 there was only a single Grand Tour stage win which occurred on Stage 16 of the Giro d’Italia. The rider who won the stage was Jon Izagirre who was one of only four riders to win a race in 2012. Along with his breakthrough Giro stage the 23 year old won the ITT on Stage 2b of the Vuelta a Austurias. Izagirre is potential future Basque star whose brother Gorka also rides for Euskaltel-Euskadi and in 2012 was the second most successful rider behind Sánchez. Besides the Tour of the Basque Country where Sánchez won two stages, the points classification and the overall it was a barren season for the Basque team.

The other wins for 2012 came firstly at Volta a Catalunya where Sánchez won Stage 6, in July at Prueba Villafranca de Ordizia which was won by Gorka Izagirre and finally at the Tour of Britain on Stage 7 where Pablo Urtasun won the last race for the season for Euskaltel-Euskadi. As well as only notching two wins outside of Spain the team suffered the tragic accident of young rider Victor Cabedo who died after being hit by a car while on a training ride at just 23.

The lack of wins in 2012 was a catalyst for the change in recruitments with several of the non-Basque riders who have been signed bringing much needed UCI World Tour points with them. In the 2012 UCI World Tour team rankings the team finished in 13th place but will be hoping in 2013 it can at least make it into the top ten and secure several more years for the team. The team will have the strange arrangement of having the Moroccan national road race champion Tarik Chaoufi on the team. He will be the first road race national champion on the team after Iñigo González de Heredia won the 1996 Spanish ITT national championships. Along with Chaoufi who was the UCI African Tour champion in 2012 the other riders of non-Basque origin to be announced are as follows; Jure Kocjan and Robert Vrečer (Slovenia), Steffan Radochla and André Schulze (Germany), Marek Rutkiewicz (Poland) and Iaonnis Tamouridis (Greece). Of the riders signed Vrečer and Tamouridis are the respective ITT champions for their country and like Chaoufi will be in the strange position of being national champions on a Basque team who have a strongly defined culture and sense of nationality.

The riders who have been brought in will be expected to win Cat 1 races and boost the UCI points for the team as they will hopefully had some depth and experience that has eluded the team. Sánchez cannot be expected to be the only rider to win races although he has had some support from Igor Anton, Mikel Nieve and Mikel Astarloza there needs to be more riders to shoulder the expectations of wins and also start recording more wins.

Top Five Results 

Giro d’Italia Stage 16 Jon Izagirre 

Tour of Britain Stage 7 Pablo Urtasun 

Tour of the Basque Country Overall/Stages 3 & 6 Samuel Sánchez 

Volta a Catalunya Stage 6 Samuel Sánchez 

Prueba Villafranca de Ordizia Gorka Izagirre 

Disappointing Riders: With only four riders notching wins in 2012 all but these riders could be lumped into a disappointing category. The failure of Mikel Nieve to win a race all year along with Igor Anton’s failure to win was disappointing. Anton finished ninth overall at the Vuelta where he has previously won four stages and after he won stages at the Vuelta and Giro last year not to have gone on this year and consolidate those results is disappointing. For Nieve it is a similar situation as he has shown promise and won stages at two Grand Tours but is yet to crack the top ten on GC. In the four Giro d’Italia’s and Vuelta’s he has raced he has finished 10th on all four occasions. Another disappointing rider who was let go by the team was Amets Txurruka whose palmares consists of two combative rider awards and no wins. The letting go of Txurruka signals the shift at Euskaltel-Euskadi which is favouring wins over nurturing Basque talent that shows promise but fails in delivering the big wins. There are several good riders with limited palmares at Euskaltel-Euskadi but they need a strong GC rider to ride for.

Breakout Riders: The two Izagirre bothers provided two highlights for the team in 2012. With Roman Sicard yet to realise his potential since winning the under-23 road race world championships in 2009 the Izagirre’s symbolise the future for Euskaltel-Euskadi. With most of the rider on Euskaltel-Euskadi in their late 20s and early 30s the Izagirre’s along with riders like Sicard, Pello Bilbao and Mikel Landa are important for the teams Basque identity and ensure that the stars of the team are Basque and not just riders brought in to ensure the survival of the team I the short term.

2013 Prospects: 2013 will be an important season for Euskaltel-Euskadi as they will find out if their new approach to recruitment pays off or undermines their entire identity as a proudly Basque team. There are some experienced riders who will come into the team but it appears the Basque riders will still be supported. In the Vuelta and Spanish races the team will most probably comprise of mostly Basque riders but it will be the medium races across Europe where Euskaltel-Euskadi will look to rack up wins in places where previously they were just participants. A fit Sánchez who should be recovered from the injuries he sustained at the Tour will look to bounce back in 2013 and at 33 he still has plenty of riding left in his legs. With the new riders coming into the system it may also lift some of the pressure off the younger riders such as Bilbao, Landa, Sicard and the Izagirre’s as the weight of expectation is lessened by scrutiny that will instead by focused on how the new riders perform. 2013 will be a pivotal year for Euskaltel-Euskadi and depending upon results may influence the future direction of the team far more than any season previously.