Young Basque climber does not want to become a MovistarAccording to Cyclism’ Actu, 24 year old climbing prodigy, Benat Intxausti, currently racing for Euskaltel Euskadi, has refused an offer from Eusebio Unzue’s Telefonica sponsored, soon to be Team Movistar.
The 2nd overall at the Vuelta al Pais Vasco behind Chris Horner apparently drew the interest of Horner’s RadioShack team with his performance earlier this year. While the Movistar offer has been cast aside, it looks like Intxausti is now weighing his options with two American teams: RadioShack and Garmin-Transitions.
This latest development looks to make a little more sense when taken with his recent comment: “Currently, I am only thinking about the Vuelta a Espana…I will quietly decide later where I will go for the future.”
It looks highly likely that the young Basque will enjoy a fair bit of success during the three week lap of Spain, which starts August 28th in Sevilla. The extremely mountainous edition will certainly favor the slight shouldered talent.
It will be interesting to see how Intxausti’s stock rises (or falls) in September, but at the bare minimum, the move to one of the American squads would be a huge change in scenery for the young rider and certainly a rather rare one for a rider from the Basque Country.