Mikel Landa opens in Bahrain with good legs and a great team

Fuglsang wins the first stage and is leader with six seconds over the Vitorian, brave in the port of Las Palomas, 6 km from the goal.

The first episode of the Vuelta a Andaluca, 174 kilometers hard between Alhaurn de la Torre and Grazalema, could not be better for the viewer, for Jakob Fuglsang, who is reissuing his 2019 title, and for Mikel Landa, who ultimately I missed the shot after a play of pure class.

In the previous one of the Route of the Sun there was talk of three couples: Fuglsang with Ion Izagirre in the Astana, first and sixth of the stage, separated by half a minute; Landa and Pello Bilbao in the Bahrain McLaren, second and fifth, with whom he has formed the Belgian Dylan Teuns, third, and Marc Soler and Enric Mas in the Movistar Team, twelfth and thirty-first, respectively, hit.

The Movistar Team had worked in the four previous ports, but already in Las Palomas, the 'first', Mas – who had left by flu a few kilometers from the first stage of the Vuelta a Murcia last Friday, disappeared and Soler showed weakness. The Catalan, only Spaniard who has raised his arms this season, progressed more by force than by force and in the end he gave 1:21 minutes to Fuglsang.

Astana and Bahrain dominated the fight. But the brave attack reached 11 kilometers from the goal, going up Las Palomas. Landa, in his first race of the year, gave the whiplash and it was seen that he prefers to go badly accompanied than alone. Fuglsang followed him, rabid, and they both reached the top of the Cadiz mountain range with just under a minute on a persecuting group in which Bilbao and Teuns, with Izagirre, guarded their companions: Spanish David de la Cruz (UAE) and the australian Jack haig (Mitchelton Scott).

Beauty in Grazalema

In the descent only Haig, next to the guard of the Astana and the two of the Bahrain, cut the losses. A minute arrived Rubn Fernndez, the Murcia fish from the Orbea Foundation (Euskadi), a runner to take into account after a few years lost due to injuries and setbacks.

The arrival in Grazalema has nothing to envy to the most beautiful, painterly and demanding of the Giro d'Italia or the transalpine classics. Stoned, narrow alley, slope … In the final ramp, Landa is already seen tired and the final lease of his companion dans cost him six seconds of loss in the goal. It is not to be unhappy. The beginning of the Bahrain, coral, predicts a good spring for Mikel Landa.

Fuglsang admits no doubts, I won last year and usually start the campaigns well and improve every month. In the Tour de France he has seen the podium from afar (7 in 2013 the most), but it always appears as a figure to be considered at kilometer zero of the 'Grande Boucle'.