Tough racing on the queen stage of the Vuelta a Murcia, but the Argyle Armada’s young guns proved up to the challenge, as director sportif Johnny Weltz reports:
The queen stage of the race to Alhama de Murcia — with this stage and the TT tomorrow there was no doubt that to keep up with the hope of winning the GC we had to be over the top in the front group. Already in the morning we knew we would lose the leader’s jersey as Robbie Hunter was going home to his wife who is about to have their second child.
The day started fast with several attacks, but today no big group got away — only four riders after 15 km. The peloton let them have eight minutes before we started to control it.
We got some help from two other teams and had a hold of things. Trent Lowe did a great job.
So coming into the last climb, a 1 cat climb, it was almost together. Near the top it shattered and Danny Pate was dropped with 3 km to go and Dave Z just 2 km before the top — our two GC guys. So we had to count on our two youngsters, Peter Stetina and Michel Kreder.
Michel finished eighth on the stage, and PEter finished in first group as well! If Michel had not flatted the first day he would have takne over the leader jersey! We’ll see tomorrow with a 22 km time trial.
More photos from the Vuelta a Murcia:
