Itzulia Basque Country

Maximilian Schachmann took his first victory since returning to Soudal Quick-Step at the beginning of the year, after a superb display on stage 1 of the Itzulia Basque Country. It was our team’s tenth success of the season, and one that put the 31-year-old at the top of the general classification of this prestigious World Tour race.

Vitoria-Gasteiz welcomed the peloton for the first time in ten years, and the 16.5km stage against the clock held around the capital of the Alava province – despite featuring a third-category climb and some small undulating roads – made for a very fast race, as shown by Schachmann’s average speed: 53.2km/h. The German wasn’t the only Soudal Quick-Step rider to produce a great effort, both Ethan Hayter and Ilan Van Wilder recording strong times that allowed them to finish the stage in the top ten.

“I’m overwhelmed! It’s an amazing feeling to win a World Tour race again, and especially a time trial. It was a hard, high-speed course, with not many sections to recover from the effort, so a short but spicy start, but I left it all out on the road and I’m happy with this success, my fourth in the Basque Country.”

“The moment I returned to this team a couple of months ago, everybody gave me a warm welcome and a lot of confidence, which was extremely important. We worked hard during the winter with Specialized and Castelli, and all this has paid off. It’s great to take this win and to have three riders in the top ten. It’s a fantastic start for the team here and we’ll continue to do our best this week”, said Max, who holds three jerseys going into Tuesday’s stage between Pamplona and Lodosa: yellow, points and KOM.

Photo credit: ©Tim De Waele / Getty Images