"To be able to win here in the Spanish champion's jersey, so close to home, is very special" - Oier Lazkano on Vuelta a Burgos success

Oier Lazkano has recently won the Spanish national championships and today he's won for the first time in his new jersey. On his nation's roads, the Movistar rider was the fastest in the finale to Pradoluengo at the Vuelta a Burgos.

"To be able to win here in the Spanish champion's jersey, so close to home, is very special," he admits in a post-race interview. "Last year in the stage to Clunia, a stage with a similar finish, we saw that the flight could well make it. So we decided to go for it today. I knew the first climb of the day, the Alto de Cubilla, very well and I was able to join the breakaway.”

The breakaway was key. The race featured a day for the sprinters, a team time-trial and two mountain stages. This was the one day where rouleurs and classics riders could ride for the win and the Spaniard took full advantage of it. He joined the very strong eight-rider group which then held off the peloton, and began the fight for the stage win in the final ascent, as no-one dared to make an early move.

“I would have liked to have tried in the closing stages, but there was a lot of headwind and with a breakaway I would certainly have blown myself up," he explains. Hence it was up for a sprint, he hit the front early on, but in the technical finale he had the most power out of the whole group, impressively beating Santiago Buitrago in the punchy ramp to the line. "In the last kilometer I knew I had to be the first to go into the last four corners section. After that I had the confidence that I could finish it and so it happened."