Euskaltel's ProTour fears and hopes

By Martin Hardie and Unai Iraragorri of GARA

Following yesterday's Pais Vasco stage to La Lejana, Euskaltel manager Miguel Madariaga summoned the directors and team members to a meeting to discuss the current dire straights. So far this season, other than the odd unsuccessful sparkle, nothing seems to have gone right for the orange squad. Madariaga spoke to our colleague Unai Iraragorri of the Basque daily GARA after the meeting and he recounted the conversation to Cyclingnews.

Madariaga told Iraragorri that "we have a lack of confidence and we have come here with our preparation a little behind schedule. We were a bit scared of the UCI Pro Tour," he recognised, "but with a little bit more confidence the victories will come."

"This is what we are suffering from and this is what inflicts us at the moment," he continued, "but we will keep working on it. We were all in agreement at the meeting that we were not going to throw in the towel." Madariaga added that the it is "the philosophy of this team that will help us put an end to this run of bad luck. We don't have a budget as high as other teams, but we have our belief. If we had a budget of 12 million Euros, Galdeano, Astarloa or Astarloza would be here with us. [...] We have to make the best of what we have, we have a few riders with some limitations. We have three leaders but we also have riders that still haven't demonstrated their ability."