2010 Caisse d'Epargne season Manager Eusebio Unzué One-day victories 2 Stage race overall victories 1Prior to Alejandro Valverde's May 31 suspension, he won two stage race overall championships and three individual stages. These victories have been officially revoked. Stage race stage victories 6 Previous season • Next season
The 2010 season for the cycling team began in January with the Tour Down Under and ended in October at the Giro di Lombardia. As a UCI ProTour team, they were automatically invited and obliged to attend every event in the ProTour. The team's manager was Eusebio Unzué, who had led it since the Banesto days.
Though an offseason attempt to sign reigning Tour de France champion Alberto Contador was ultimately unsuccessful, the team added noteworthy riders for the 2010 season, including former Tour de France King of the Mountains Mauricio Soler and Marzio Bruseghin, who finished in the top ten in three Grand Tours over the previous two seasons.
The French banking group Caisse d'Epargne departed sponsorship after the 2010 season, preferring to sponsor the French Olympic teams. Spanish telecommunications company Telefónica, S.A. has stepped in to sponsor the team from 2011, giving the team the name of one its brands as it races as Team Movistar in 2011.
After lengthy legal proceedings, the team's top rider Alejandro Valverde was given a global two-year ban on May 31, backdated to January 1. Since he was, in essence, banned for all of the 2010 season, the results he obtained before the Court of Arbitration for Sport's decision came down were vacated and awarded to previously second-placed riders.
2010 roster Ages as of January 1, 2010
Riders who joined the team for the 2010 season Rider2009 teamMarzio BruseghinJuan José CoboChristophe MoreauRubén PlazaLiberty SegurosMauricio Soler
Riders who left the team during or after the 2009 season Rider2010 teamAnthony CharteauDaniel MorenoÓscar PereiroMarlon Pérez ArangoFree agentNicolas PortalJoaquim Rodríguez
One-day races
Spring classics
Fall races
Stage races The team's first race of the season was the Tour Down Under. They were noted to be sending a strong squad, including Valverde and former Tour Down Under champion Sánchez, who viewed the race as an important part of a 2010 race program meant to lead to victory in Paris–Nice. Valverde had a chance at victory in the undulating third stage of the race, holding the wheel of world champion Cadel Evans in a select leading group. A moment of hesitation when he was unsure if Evans was attacking for victory let 's Manuel Cardoso escape for the win. Two days later, the team got their first win of the season with Sánchez, as he, along with Valverde, Evans, and Peter Sagan formed a winning breakaway on the Old Willunga Hill Road that almost won sufficient time over race leader André Greipel to give Sánchez the overall lead. Sánchez finished the race the next day in second place overall. In February, Valverde won the Tour Méditerranéen overall without winning a stage, by virtue of his time gap over previous race leader Jussi Veikkanen on the final day's stage to Mont Faron. Later in the month, Sánchez won the individual time trial which closed out the Volta ao Algarve, finishing that event second overall.
Grand Tours
Giro d'Italia Caisse d'Epargne was one of 22 teams in the Giro d'Italia. The team was not competitive in the opening to the Giro in the Netherlands. They did not have riders contesting the finishes to either of the first two road race stages, and their best-placed rider in the overall standings before the transfer to Italy was Arroyo in 38th. Several team members were brought down in a big crash, which also claimed then-race leader Cadel Evans among its victims, in stage 3. Bruseghin, an outside favorite for overall success in the Giro, was thus put over eight minutes off the leading pace. The team's fortunes changed little in the stage 4 team time trial. They came in 18th, 2'21" off the pace of stage winners . In stage 6, a two-man breakaway survived to the finish of the stage. A depleted group sprint at the head of the peloton then fought for the remaining placings a minute behind the winner. Kiryienka took eighth in this stage.
Stage 7 was one of the major days in the Giro. The course was long and incorporated unpaved roads. The day on which the stage was run happened to have heavy rainfall, making for muddy riding in the unpaved sectors. After then-race leader Vincenzo Nibali sustained a mechanical issue which necessitated a bike change, Arroyo was one of a handful of riders to follow a timely attack from Alexander Vinokourov. Arroyo could not stay with the leaders (Vinokourov, Evans, and Damiano Cunego) but took fifth on the stage 12 seconds back of Evans. The result moved him up 11 places in the overall standings, from 25th to 14th. The Giro's 11th stage was another big one. An enormous breakaway group formed in this stage, near 50 riders at its most populous. Arroyo, Kiryienka, Amador, and Losada all made this selection. With Arroyo in 11th place in the overall standings, the other three worked hard to try to drive the break to its biggest advantage. Arroyo took eighth on the stage, 7 seconds back of the stage winner, as he did not contest the sprint for the stage win. His 13-minute time gap over the peloton moved him up to second in the overall standings.
Arroyo was a far stronger climber than Richie Porte, the man who had taken the race leadership on this stage. In the Giro's next mountain stage, stage 14 to Asolo incorporating Monte Grappa, Arroyo finished only 12th, over two minutes behind stage winner Vincenzo Nibali, but took the pink jersey as Porte was a further two minutes back in 24th. This was the first time the team, then known as , had held the pink jersey since Miguel Induráin won the race overall in 1993. In stage 15, the Monte Zoncolan stage, Arroyo finished nearly four minutes behind stage winner Ivan Basso, but he still retained the pink jersey because of how much time he had in hand to the race's overall favorites. Arroyo was another two minutes off the winning time in the climbing time trial to Plan de Corones in the next stage, but still held more than two minutes' advantage over Basso in second place after the stage.
The next two stages were flat and won by breakaways and sprinters, meaning they did not alter the overall standings. Arroyo was in the pink jersey with two minutes on Basso and three stages left to race, and was at this point entertaining the idea that he could win the Giro. In stage 19, Basso, his teammate Nibali, and Michele Scarponi easily dropped Arroyo on the climb of the Passo del Mortirolo. Basso then rode the descent very conservatively, with the other two needing to wait for him several times. Arroyo rode a very aggressive descent, and caught Carlos Sastre, John Gadret, Evans, and Vinokourov, who had been between him and the leading Italian trio. The five coalesced into a chase group on the day's final climb, to Aprica. Despite having only a few seconds' advantage at the start of a relatively easy climb, Basso's group gained time all throughout the climb and finished sufficiently ahead of Arroyo's to put the pink jersey on him. Arroyo stayed with Basso on the descent of the Passo di Gavia the next day instead of trying to regain the jersey. Though he conceded a little time in both the Passo del Tonale climb in stage 20 and the individual time trial in stage 21, Arroyo held on for second overall between Basso and Nibali. The squad finished third in the Trofeo Fast Team standings and 17th in the Trofeo Super Team.
Tour de France Sánchez led the team's squad at the Tour de France, along with newly crowned Spanish road race champion Gutiérrez. Absent from the race were the newly suspended Valverde and Soler, who had planned to start but withdrew due to a knee injury sustained in the Critérium du Dauphiné. Rojas was in line to contest the sprint finish to stage 1, but he was caught behind in the massive crash that took place in the peloton just meters from the finish line, taking seventh on the day, two second behind the five riders who were able to steer clear of the crash and finish together. Stage 4 also ended with a sprint. Rojas was able to contest this one, but finished only seventh. He also finished in the top ten in stages 5 and 6, the latter of which involved Perget earning the day's combativity award. Perget again showed combativity in stage 7, finishing fifth in a three-man group that crossed the line 7 seconds ahead of the main peloton. Plaza was ninth in this stage.
After the first rest day, Caisse d'Epargne placed two riders in the top four of stage 9. Sánchez and Moreau were part of the day's breakaway, and stayed away (though they were joined by overall favorites Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck, who did not contest the finish). These results put the squad in first place in the teams classification, by a margin of 31 seconds over and 35 seconds over . Sánchez lost out on the stage win when Sandy Casar took an aggressive final turn to the finish line, which was situated just after a hairpin left turn. Sánchez did, however, gain the day's combativity award and move up to 8th overall. Astana rode in support of Contador's bid for a third Tour title and Team RadioShack had no overall contender (due to Lance Armstrong falling well out of contention after stage 8). Thus, the American team contested the team award with Caisse d'Epargne for the remainder of the race, making sure to mark one another in breakaways. The very next day, the teams supplied the two riders who contested the stage finish, with Team RadioShack's Sérgio Paulinho beating Kiryienka after Kiryienka rode the stage's concluding kilometer in an unstrategic fashion. Rojas took fourth in the sprint finish to stage 11, and fifth on stage 13 (though this sprint was for second place as Alexander Vinokourov won the day with a solo move). After having lost the team award for two days, they took it back after stage 14 when their top three riders finished 14th, 15th, and 16th to Team RadioShack's 11th, 17th, and 22nd, giving Caisse d'Epargne an eight-second lead. The next day, however, they lost the lead for good on a difficult mountain stage where Sánchez also dropped out of the top ten following a distant 30th-place finish, five minutes behind the stage winner and three minutes behind the race's top riders. The team did their best to remain combative, placing two riders in the breakaway in stage 16 to match RadioShack's representation, but the four-minute gap that faced them at that point was too much to overcome. Ultimately, the team left the Tour without any victories. They finished second to RadioShack in the teams classification, by a margin of nine minutes and 15 seconds. Sánchez was their highest-placed individual rider, in 11th place at a deficit of 14 minutes and 21 seconds to Tour champion Contador.
Vuelta a España
Caisse d'Epargne came to the Vuelta a España with a squad composed of several riders who could conceivably lead it. Unzue stated that he was confident about his team's chances to secure a podium place in the race, and commented that Arroyo, Sánchez, Bruseghin, Plaza, or Urán could all potentially emerge as the squad's leader and protected rider.