Movistar Team prepare for Itzulia Basque Country with three key stars
Cycling
The next WorldTour stage race is the Itzulia Basque Country 2025. The race, which is also known as Vuelta al País Vasco, will feature Enric Mas, who will repeat as leader in Movistar Team's lineup after the Volta a Catalunya just last week.
This edition of the Itzulia is presented as a golden opportunity both for the Balearic rider, who has not won since October 2022, and for Movistar Team itself, due to the absence of the main cycling stars (Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard, Primoz Roglic and Remco Evenepoel).
The telephone team has not been able to maintain the level of its great start of the season, and in this Itzulia Basque Country they want to get back on the right track. For this, in addition to Mas, the team will also take two of its best riders: Javier Romo and Pablo Castrillo.
All 3 cyclists have shown a good overall level so far in 2025:
- Enric Mas: came 3rd overall in the Volta a Catalunya, his first podium in one of the main one-week tours of the calendar, only behind Roglic and Juan Ayuso, and ahead of Mikel Landa.
- Pablo Castrillo: he has competed in 3 stage races so far, and in all of them he has been one of Movistar's most outstanding climbers. His best result came in the UAE Tour, in a race where Pogacar was also there, and where Castrillo was 6th overall thanks to his great individual time trial (6th) and his good performances in Jebel Jais and Jebel Hafeet.
- Javier Romo: the rider from Toledo will reappear after his hard crash in the Drôme Classic, which caused him a facial contusion. Before that, Romo chained stage win and 2nd overall in the Tour Down Under, 4th in the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race and 7th in the Ardèche Classic.
The confidence of Enric Mas
In addition to having two super gregarios like Pablo Castrillo and Javier Romo, Enric Mas will arrive at the Itzulia with his confidence sky high. After finishing 3rd in the Volta, the Spaniard said that the Tour of the Basque Country is his main goal for the first part of the season:
"It's the first time in my life that I feel very good in a Volta a Catalunya. It gives me the motivation to keep working and get to the Basque Country super well, which is my first goal of the year. That's what I wanted, to do a good Volta here and then a super Itzulia."
So why is Movistar Team "obliged" to win? Apart from the aforementioned trio of stars and the absence of the main names in the peloton, in principle the telefónico team does not expect a very strong rivalry in the fight for the general classification.
There will be names to compete, that's for sure, but at the level that Mas, Castrillo and Romo are at, the Telefonica team should have the chance to win in this next edition of the Itzulia Basque Country.
What, no Jay, Jonas. Remco, Primoz, etc.? Hope Cras doesn’t need an H this year.
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