2011 Euskaltel–Euskadi season Manager Igor González de Galdeano One-day victories 1 Stage race overall victories – Stage race stage victories 9 Previous season • Next season
The 2011 season for began in January at the Tour Down Under and ended in October at the Giro di Lombardia. It was the team's eighteenth season as a professional cycling team, and its eleventh with UCI ProTeam – Trade Team 1 between 2001 and 2004 – status. As a UCI ProTeam, they were automatically invited and obligated to send a squad to every event on the UCI World Tour calendar. For the second year in a row, the traditionally all-Basque team added a French rider. This year, it was second-year professional Pierre Cazaux, who rode for in 2010.
The team achieved ten victories in 2011, down from a tally of seventeen the previous season, but among the ten were some of the most difficult days of racing in the entire season. These included back-to-back stages with summit finishes at the Giro d'Italia, with Igor Antón winning at the summit of the Monte Zoncolan, and Mikel Nieve, who won by over 90 seconds the following day at the Val di Fassa. The squad's captain at the Tour de France, Samuel Sánchez won the first high-mountain finish of the race, up to Luz Ardiden; he eventually finished the race in fifth place overall, and won the King of the Mountains sub-classification. Though he failed to figure as an overall contender at the Vuelta a España, Antón won the first Vuelta stage ending in the Basque Country in 33 years, a stage with clear importance for the team.
2011 roster Ages as of January 1, 2011.
Riders who joined the team for the 2011 season Rider2010 teamPierre CazauxJon IzagirreOrbeaMikel LandaOrbeaPello BilbaoOrbea
Riders who left the team during or after the 2010 season Rider2011 teamSergio De LisRetiredAitor GaldósCaja RuralAitor HernándezNoneBeñat Intxausti
One-day races Prior to the spring season and the races known as classics, the team was active at the Vuelta a Mallorca series of single-day races. They took high placings at the unofficial Trofeo Palma de Mallorca (Fernández in eighth) and at the Trofeo Inca (Izagirre in 9th).
Spring classics Team captain Sánchez took the team's first race win of the season at the GP Miguel Indurain. The team effectively controlled the front of the race all day, keeping the peloton at a high pace and reeling in breakaways, including one from 's Vasil Kiryienka in the final kilometers that Sánchez later described as "strong." Atop the Basilica del Puy, Sánchez outsprinted second placed Alexandr Kolobnev so convincingly that he opened a time gap of 2 seconds. Sánchez also turned in a good ride at La Flèche Wallonne. The Asturian rode with the race's top favorites all day, and came third behind Philippe Gilbert and Joaquim Rodríguez atop the Mur de Huy at the finish. Sánchez also finished near to the front of the race at the last of the Ardennes classics, Liège–Bastogne–Liège, with tenth on the day.
The team's presence at other single-day races in the spring season was paltry. Only two other races featured top-ten finishes from the team. Txurruka took seventh at the Klasika Primavera, finishing staunchly in the middle of a 15-man sprint at the finish. Antón similarly made all the day's selections and finished 11th in this group, as he built his form for the Giro d'Italia. Later in April at the Gran Premio de Llodio, Nieve rode to eighth-place finishing with the first chase group behind a solo winner.
The team also sent squads to the Clásica de Almería, Milan–San Remo, Gent–Wevelgem, the Tour of Flanders, the Scheldeprijs, the Grand Prix Pino Cerami, Paris–Roubaix, the Amstel Gold Race, and the Vuelta a La Rioja, but finished no higher than 12th in any of these races. Paris–Roubaix figured as an especially difficult day for the team, as Alan Pérez was the team's only classified finisher and was well down in 107th place on the day.
Fall races The team had few noteworthy performances in later-season single-day races. Sánchez held the Clásica de San Sebastián as a target for his season, hoping to be the first Euskaltel-Euskadi rider to win the race. Sánchez rode at the front of the race most of the day, until the winner Philippe Gilbert made his signature solo attack to earn victory. Sánchez finished near the back of the chase pack 14 seconds down the road, for eighth place on the day. Izagirre just missed the podium at the Prueba Villafranca de Ordizia, finishing fourth in a five-man escape that decided the race. Near the end of the season, the team did obtain a podium finish. Trainee rider Peio Bilbao finished second in October's Tour de Vendée. He was just edged out by 's Marco Marcato in a five-man sprint finish. Only 14 riders officially completed this race due to race organizers strictly enforcing the time cut.
The team also sent squads to the Circuito de Getxo, the Châteauroux Classic, Vattenfall Cyclassics, the GP Ouest-France, the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec, the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal, Paris–Tours, the Giro del Piemonte, and the Giro di Lombardia, but finished no higher than 15th in any of these races.
Stage races Sánchez won stage 4 at the Tour of the Basque Country in April, the team's first win in a stage race on the season. He made the day's selections and stayed with an elite group which formed at the top of the Arrate climb. Sánchez attacked on the descent and won the stage that way, though he did not have a time gap at the finish. Sánchez had also won the stage run on this same course in 2010. Antón finished on the podium, in third, at the Vuelta a Castilla y León, thanks to a fourth place on the race's one summit finish and a solid individual time trial the next day. At the Tour de Romandie, Castroviejo took a relatively rare time trial win for the team, coming home mere tenths of a second better than Taylor Phinney and Leigh Howard in the prologue. He turned in another strong time trial later in the Tour de Romandie, finishing ninth in the stage 4 race against the clock, which was long, as well as eighth earlier in the season in the time trial which closed out the Tirreno–Adriatico. Castroviejo further confirmed his prowess in the short time trial by winning stage 1 of the Vuelta a la Comunidad de Madrid, a timed race. No rider finished within 10 seconds of his winning time.
The team had a successful Vuelta a Burgos in August. Defending champion Sánchez won the first stage, atop San Juan del Monte, by outkicking Joaquim Rodríguez in sight of the line as the two finished four seconds better than any other riders. However, he lost the race lead to Rodríguez when the latter won stage 2 in the city of Burgos. The stage 3 team time trial then dropped Sánchez to fifth overall, before he improved to fourth after stage 4. Landa won stage 5 from a breakaway, his first professional victory. Winning the final climb also gave him enough points to take the race's mountains classification. The squad placed three riders in the top ten, with Sánchez fourth, Antón eighth, and Nieve tenth. Antón rounded out the team's season by winning the climber's prize at the inaugural Tour of Beijing.
The team also sent squads to the Tour Down Under, the Vuelta a Andalucía, the Vuelta a Murcia, Paris–Nice, Tirreno–Adriatico, the Volta a Catalunya, Bayern-Rundfahrt, the Critérium du Dauphiné, the Tour de Suisse, the Brixia Tour, the Eneco Tour, and the Tour du Poitou-Charentes, but did not achieve a stage win, classification win, or podium finish in any of them.
Grand Tours
Giro d'Italia Euskaltel-Euskadi has in their history been reticent to ride the Giro d'Italia, favoring the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España instead. After first indicating a reluctant willingness to participate as per the requirements of holding a ProTeam license, the team later stated that they intended to seek overall victory in the race with Antón. Antón was named as the leader of the squad, which included Nieve, Oroz, Isasi, Aramendía, Azanza, Cazaux, Sesma and Minguez to ride in support. Antón tempered the expectations somewhat, saying that a stage win would be nice, as would General Classification success should it come, but that he was only banking on riding for the overall at the Vuelta a España.
The squad was dead last of 23 teams in the stage 1 team time trial, losing more than a minute to the winners , a result later described by team captain Antón as "a bit ugly". Antón finished with the group of overall favorites in the selective fifth and seventh stages, and was solidly eighth in stage 9 when eventual Giro champion Alberto Contador won the day and first took the race lead, but sat only in 11th place as a result. The squad was, as could be expected, far more successful in the second and more mountainous half of the race. Antón's ride on stage 13 ending at Grossglockner in Austria moved him into the top ten overall for the first time, at seventh place, though he was again distanced from Contador at the front of the race and lay over four minutes down. The next day's stage ended at Monte Zoncolan, one of the steepest climbs in all of professional cycling. Antón rode with the top overall riders until about to go, when he attacked and broke free. Riding for a time with Contador and Joaquim Rodríguez, who had bridged up, Antón put in another attack with left to go, and surpassed the remaining riders from the morning breakaway to occupy first position on the road. He rode alone to the finish for the stage win, by 33 seconds over Contador in second place. Antón revealed after the stage that he had never ridden the climb before, having only seen it on television. He admitted it was a risk to attack for victory from as far out as he did and that he suffered badly in the final few kilometers, but was still able to hold on. Antón called the Zoncolan climb "mythical" and "absolutely the hardest climb for a bike race." The result installed him into third place overall, still more than three minutes down on Contador but only a single second behind Vincenzo Nibali for second place. Antón mused that he may try to hold on to his podium placing to the conclusion of the race.
The next day featured the third consecutive summit finish prior to the second rest day, at Gardeccia, near the Fascia Valley. Nieve figured into a high-powered breakaway that formed right as the morning's initial breakaway was caught, after about had been raced. Also in the group were former Grand Tour winners Stefano Garzelli, Danilo Di Luca, and Carlos Sastre, and it was Nieve and Garzelli who formed a chase behind 's Johnny Hoogerland on the way to the Cima Coppi (the Giro's tallest climb) at the Passo Giau. Garzelli took the climb, and the Passo Fedaia that followed, and maintained first position on the road well into the stage-concluding climb, but Nieve eventually caught and passed him with left to race. Nieve won the stage, and as he approached the finish line he attempted to raise his arms in a gesture of triumph, but he found himself too fatigued to do even that. Nieve's ride had taken nearly seven and a half hours, visiting five grueling high-category climbs along the way. The day was not a good one for Antón. He finished eight minutes back of teammate Nieve, losing between four and six minutes to the race's top overall riders. He fell back to 11th with the day's results, while Nieve entered the top ten at fifth overall.