The Basque roads dind't prepare a warm welcome for the Team dsm-firmenich PostNL riders in the first road stage. The first hit came when their Latvian sprinter Emils Liepins punctured with about 12 kilometers to go. The team put in a tremendous effort to bridge their sprinter back, yet once they completed the effort, another disaster struck when peloton split in a crash and whole team missed the split with about 4 km left to race.
Impacted by the fall was their leader Oscar Onley, who got away with several cuts and scrapes. Yet more important was the loss of more than three minutes which disqualifies the British climber from the fight for overall result at Itzulia Basque Country.
"We were in a good position at 20 kilometres to go but in the end it was a lot more hectic, with a lot of bad luck. Emils had a flat tyre at around 12 kilometres to go when it was really fast, so it was a hard chase back. We made it back at around five kilometres left but we were then again unlucky with Oscar involved in the crash at four kilometres to go, but he is okay apart from some cuts so that is the most important thing for the rest of the week," summed up team captain Romain Combaud afterwards.
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