Euskaltel-Euskadi

Euskaltel-Euskadi (UCI Team Code: EUS) is a professional road bicycle racing team from Spain. The team is commercially sponsored, but also works as an unofficial Basque national team and is partly funded by the Basque Government. Its riders are either from Basque Country, or at least have grown up in the cycling culture of those regions. Its sponsor is Euskaltel, a Basque telecom company. Euskatel-Euskadi is famous for its all-orange team kits, and it has been known to hand out orange Euskaltel t-shirts and Basque flags to fans when the Tour de France makes a swing into the Basque Country.

After a breakthrough 2003 Tour de France during which both Iban Mayo and Haimar Zubeldia finished in the top-10 of the general classification, with Mayo winning the Alpe d'Huez stage, Euskaltel-Euskadi was considered to be a strong contender for the 2004 Tour de France. Iban Mayo's commanding victory in the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré stage race (traditionally seen as one of the tests for Tour de France contenders), including defeating Lance Armstrong in the Mont Ventoux hill climb individual time trial stage, further fueled the hype. Unfortunately, Mayo was injured in a crash on a pavé section of an early stage of the Tour de France, and abandoned in the first Pyrénées stage. Zubeldia also failed to deliver in...
Read More