Quintana secures overall Vuelta Ciclista a Murcia victory

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Alexander Serov (RusVelo) powered to a narrow victory in the Vuelta Ciclista a Murcia's second and final stage, a 12.3km individual time trial in Murcia. The 29-year-old Russian finished 55 hundredths of a second in front of runner-up Jonathan Castroviejo (Movistar Team), while Alexander Wetterhall (Endura Racing) finished third, three seconds back.

Serov, who's made his mark on the track with multiple national titles plus World Cup victories in the team pursuit, made history for his RusVelo squad by earning the first victory for the new, Russian-based Pro Continental outfit. "A win is always something beautiful," said RusVelo general manager Heiko Salzwedel. "This one however is the first RusVelo victory in history, making it even more special. Alexander deserves this victory. He rode like a motorbike today and shows great form. I am sure we will have a lot of fun watching his further development"

Nairo Quintana (Movistar), the winner in Saturday's road stage, successfully defended his leader's jersey to claim the overall classification. The 22-year-old Colombian, who started the stage with a 14-second advantage on Wout Poels (Vacansoleil-DCM) and a 16-second margin on Jonathan Tiernan-Locke (Endura Racing), finished the stage in 27th place, 32 seconds off Serov's winning effort.

Despite ceding time to his closest general classification riders, Quintana's cushion from the previous day's mountain finish was enough to win overall, with Tiernan-Locke moving into second overall at six seconds and Poels clinching the final overall podium position at nine seconds.

"I'm really, really happy with taking this overall victory," said Quintana. "I already said yesterday I could stay in the fight at the time trial and I proved it today. I never did specific TT training, but I got to be the national U23 time trial champion in Colombia and I don't do really bad at them.

"I knew how to stay calm in these hours after yesterday's victory, I had some good rest and although the TT route wasn't in my favour, I was happy this morning after doing the recon because it had no dangerous points. I was especially afraid of Poels, but we had the references from my teammates and I knew I could keep the jersey."

Quintana, the 2010 Tour de l'Avenir winner, is in his first year at the ProTour level with Spanish team Movistar and he's justifiably proud of his first general classification win since claiming the French race approximately one and a half years prior.

"This win is very important, probably as much as the overall in the Tour de l'Avenir, because that one opened the doors and allowed me to come here," said Quintana. "This gives me much morale and confidence for the rest of the season. I want to thank everyone from the team for the full support they gave me these two days, and dedicate this win to my family and God, which helped me much because being so much time far from home is difficult for me."

Additionally, Quintana's victory wasn't the only success for Movistar in Murcia as Jonathan Castroviejo claimed the points classification and the riders collectively won the team classification.