Kashechkin moves up

The Astana team had a good day to La Covatilla with Andrey Kashechkin finishing third and also moving up to third overall. The team was aggressive throughout the stage, and had Sergio Paulinho placed in the day's breakaway, finally finishing 13th in the stage. Alexandre Vinokourov was not at his best and lost 2'13, dropping to 19th on GC.

Kashechkin commented after the stage that it had been a nice race, "although very different from the stages of the Tour de France. It was very hot and we have made a great selection."

Kashechkin commented on his tactics while he was riding with Carlos Sastre and Alejandro Valverde in pursuit of the leaders on the last climb. "I stopped working because Valverde and Sastre had more responsibility. I have attacked just at the end, to catch Di Luca."

Despite being in third overall, Kashechkin is still not ready to take responsibility for the GC. "There are many teams that have come to fight for the general classification. It was only the first mountain and I believe that Valverde and Sastre are going to improve a lot in the third week, they continue being the favourites."

As well as Sastre and Valverde, Kashechkin pointed to "Marchante, because I've seen him attack very hard." As for Brajkovic, he commented, " I do not know him, he is still very young."