Movistar seeks redemption in the Pyrenees

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At the end of the exhausting and frantic stage this Friday between Millau and Lavaur, the faces of the Movistar riders were of satisfaction.

The first cut of the day, caused by the Bora in the first kilometers, had only caught

on the wrong

.

The second, the tremendous whiplash by Ineos at 40 from the goal, was resolved with its three leaders maintaining their privileged position in the group of 41 survivors.

A day saved with flying colors for a team whose strength lies more in the mountains than in the plains and a dose of morale needed just before the Pyrenees, which threaten to break the race this weekend.

"The balance is very positive. Being with the three leaders, Alejandro Valverde, Enric Mas and Marc Soler in front, on such a difficult day, with the wind ... We can't ask for more,"

at the finish line.

It may seem like a small thing what the only Spanish team on the Tour achieved this Friday, but their season is not being so as not to celebrate the small joys that the road will grant them.

The transition undertaken this year is being much tougher than imagined.

He already had at Movistar that the successes of other courses would be difficult to repeat after the

,

,

and

, but the reality so far is overwhelming: the Spanish is the worst World Tour team of the season.

Several registries prove it.

He has only added one victory (for Soler in one of the days of the Mallorca Challenge), less than anyone else in the first division of world cycling.

He is also bottom in the Top3 standings, with just six, none of them in World Tour races.

And

tenth place this Friday

is the highest they have achieved so far on the Tour.

More (13 to 22 seconds in the general), Valverde (14 to 34) and Soler (25 to 2'40 ") have already decided time with respect to the best, although the differences between the Balearic Islands and Murcia are more than salvageable. .

"We know and recognize that our start to the season has not been the best, but we are here to do a good performance. I think we are still in the ointment and that we can aspire to do well in the weeks that remain," commented Mas on Thursday at the finish line. .

The Spaniard is still young (25 years old), but for the moment he has not responded to the expectations that Movistar placed in him as a great reference for stage laps.

His best position in 26 days of competition has been 14th in

, the day

won

, and in the three generals he has played he has not exceeded 20th.

Very little for who in 2018 was second in the general of the Tour of Spain.

Good gregarious and promises

The other great bullet of the Spanish team is Valverde from whom, already 40 years old, little or nothing can be demanded.

does not finish taking the leap that is expected of him and to top it off

, a rider with the ability to achieve victories in second level events, will not run any more for the remainder of the season after the fall he suffered in the Tour of Poland .

The rest of the squad, awaiting the arrival of

next season, is made up of cyclists who stand out more for being good gregarious or promising for the future than for having the capacity to achieve victories.

"I trust that we will turn it around because there is a lot of work behind it and the reward has to appear somewhere," commented, always positive, before the start of the Tour the boss of the team,

.

The Pyrenees are a priori propitious terrain for Movistar to find the redemption it so badly needs.

In fact, two of the three stages won by the telephone squad in the last five years (two from Quintana and one from Ion Izagirre) arrived on similar routes this weekend, with several mountain passes and a downhill final.

Saturday's stage is the hardest of the two on paper, with the Menté (6.9 km at 8.1%) and the

almost chained in the final 50 kilometers

(11.7 km at 7.7%) and the

(9.7 km at 7.8%), which is crowned 12 behind.

On Sunday, perhaps more conducive to a successful escape, the

(11.1 km at 8.8%) and the

(3.8 km at 8

%)

are climbed consecutively in the first half of the stage.

, 8%) and already at the end, although still 18 from the finish line, the

(7.7 km at 8.6%).

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• Stage 7: Millau - Lavaur, live