"I didn't trust my sprint. But it was the only option I had" - Jon Barrenetxea runs through Andalucia surprise victory
Cycling
The end of the Vuelta a Andalucía 2025 has been tremendous. Movistar closed the race with a stage win while Pavel Sivakov gave UAE the overall, Jon Barrenetxea triumphed in the 'fuga de la fuga'.
The Movistar Team rider attacked in the breakaway with 17 kilometers to go. There a group of 6 riders was formed. With 5 km to go, a crash took 3 of them out of the fight. Between Barrenetxea, Johannes Staune-Mittet and Tobias Johannessen everything was decided.
The Spaniard was showing clear signs of physical exhaustion, but in the final sprint he managed to beat his two rivals - although the sprint saw Johannessen complain quite a lot. "The start was very hard. Enric Mas and I managed to get into the breakaway. Then it was the breakaway of the breakaway. And there we had to fight with sticks". Also, through Señal Deportes, he expanded more about everything that happened: "In such a hard stage you never know, because the body suffers a lot and there is a lot of wear and tear".
"Staune-Mittet was more tired, but Johannessen was stronger," added the Movistar rider. "I was really empty, and I didn't trust my sprint. But it was the only option I had. I took a gamble and went flat out."
During the race, Movistar had problems due to a virus that spread through the team: "We are very happy. In the end, four teammates withdrew due to illness. It was my turn to work. Thanks to that I had my chance, and I was able to take advantage of it," Barrenetxea continued. "In the end we worked to get victories. After such a complicated week, I'm very happy".
With this one, Jon Barrenetxea adds 2 victories as a professional cyclist, after the one he also achieved with Movistar last year in the Circuito de Getxo and is part of the Spanish team's new uprising of talent.
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🇪🇸☀️ #VueltaAndalucía 🏁 - 🏆 ¡𝗤𝗨𝗘 𝗚𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗗𝗘 𝗘𝗥𝗘𝗦 𝗝𝗢𝗡!
— Movistar Team (@Movistar_Team) February 23, 2025
🔥 Victoria de @BarrenetxeaJon en la última etapa de la @VCANDALUCIA con final en la Línea de la Concepción.#RodamosJuntos | @movistar_es | #RutaDelSol | #71RdS | #100VCA pic.twitter.com/BMmrYjGI5N
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- Why do Ineos want him.? He cannot challenge the big four and they already have a ton of strong domestiquesabstractengineer04-04-2025
- As Wout said on Srava today "Things don't always go your way... but a flat white and peanut butter brownie can make up for a lot" Puts it in perspective!VgnRider04-04-2025
- Watch out Urska, I think he’s taken a liking to MVDP ;-)Mistermaumau04-04-2025
- Totally!Mistermaumau04-04-2025
- It will be interesting to see how he goes on the cobbles, so far he's looking very strong.awp04-04-2025
- if there is an actual weakness in wout even when completely healthy, it’s that he’s in his head too often. this has been pointed out many times by much more acute observers of cycling than ME, certainly. it may be that he’s been like this since he was a little kid. we are who we are. or that he was shaped by having faced van der poel SOOO many times. mvdp has zero second thoughts. he wastes no time at all on doubt. that has, in the past, led him to do some pretty insane things and make mistakes that wout would never have committed. but it also makes him a killer. you can see wout’s split seconds of doubt and hesitation everywhere in their head to head battles. those hesitations spill over into other races at times like dwars, when doubt creeps in. i believe that currently he is still coming back from physical problems due to injuries, but even when he’s full strength the mental game is an area of potential concern, AND potential improvement.OCexile03-04-2025
- Not only the public, just about every analyst and commentator had been piling it on. Under the circumstances I’d even say he’s showing real character. Not sure likeable Tadej would manage as well during a longer rough patch.Mistermaumau03-04-2025
- Took a while but we finally have a more nuanced analysis.Mistermaumau03-04-2025
- If I remember right, it was those same hungry journalists selling us a different story less than a year ago about the bleak future of Dutch (men’s) cycling with no possible successor for MVDP ;-)Mistermaumau03-04-2025
- Good, hopefully Jonas goes also so we get a nice duelvappaxbipmv03-04-2025