Euskadi - Murias (Spain) - A superb Óscar Rodríguez achieved today a historic win for the Euskadi-Murias ProContinental team in Vuelta a España stage 13 (Candás. Carreño - Valle del Sabero. La Camperona, 174.8 km).

The young cyclist from Navarre, aged 23, showed himself on the last climb and beat all the other riders in order to reach the finish line in first place. This is a landmark for the team in their fourth season on the roads — and the first one as a Professional Continental squad. This is the ninth win for the Basque team this season.

The team managed by Jon Odriozola showed their strength with three men in the break of the day: Gari Bravo, Edu Prades and Óscar Rodríguez. 29 more riders were in the break. In the teams’ classification, the Euskadi-Murias squad ended up third today. Prades got to the finish line 15th and Bizkarra, close to the best riders in the GC, was 42nd.

Óscar Rodríguez:

“I still can’t believe this. I thought that winning a pro race was something unreachable for me — even more when it’s a stage at La Vuelta. I had analyzed today’s profile, but it wasn’t my intention to win today. When you want to beat people like Valverde, you have to be in the break of the day, and sometimes you can’t achieve that even if you try. Eventually everything went perfect today — even better than expected. When Majka attacked I thought I wouldn’t be able to get back to his wheel, but later I closed the gap. When I reached him I saw he didn’t have a good face, so I accelerated and went solo. When I got to the arrival, I felt truly happy for everyone who believed in me, for the team… A lot of people deserve this. I’m going to enjoy this win a lot. Our team is in the good way, but we would need a little help in order to become a big team. For me, this is the new Euskaltel-Euskadi, a first class team which fights in every race.”

On Saturday the race will arrive to Les Praeres (1st cat.), covering 171 kilometers from Cistierna and climbing four more KOM passes.