The 69th Vuelta a Andalucía came to a close on Sunday afternoon with another climb-filled stage that tempted the breakaway specialists but ultimately ended in a sprint won by Omar Fraille (Ineos). Andrea Pasqualon, making his debut for Bahrain Victorious, capped a fine week with 3rd place on the day.

Overall, we occupied ⅔ of the final podium, with Mikel Landa and Santiago Buitrago finishing 2nd & 3rd behind winner Tadej Pogačar (UAE).

The Bahrain colours had been at the front of the pack once again, chasing down a 7-man break whose gap reached 3 & a half minutes before they were caught on the approach to the arrival town of Alhaurín de la Torre. Just over halfway through the 184kms from Otura, the peloton had tackled the longest climb of this year’s Ruta, the 17.3k, first category Puerto del Sol.

As well as second place on GC, Landa was the best placed Spanish rider and was happy with his performance as he builds up to bigger races later in the year:

“Today was a very nervous stage again because so many riders were trying to make it into the breakaway. I wanted to win the stage of course, but I’m happy that I made the podium and held on to it”

For Buitrago it’s a second podium in as many races, after our 23 year-old Columbian climber also took 3rd at the Saudi Tour at the beginning of the month.

“Every stage was hard. I’m happy, it’s Sunday, and we’ve finished 2nd & 3rd. A second podium for me, and it’s good to start the season like this.

Our objective was to achieve something on GC with Mikel and me, which we did. The team worked well together, we were active in the race: we had Zamba in breakaways, Matej on the front, and Andrea showed good form too.

We’ll aim to keep improving, get more podiums and more good results for the team – there are still lots of races left this year!”

It’s been an excellent early season for Bahrain, already surpassing last year’s results at the same point. The team are in action this week at the UAE Tour, and on ‘Opening Weekend’ in Belgium, at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad on Saturday, & Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne on Sunday.

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