Pereiro happy in support role

Tour de France star Oscar Pereiro also spoke to Onda Cero, saying that he had no problems in riding for his Caisse d'Epargne team-mate Alejandro Valverde. "I feel great with that. It's a job I love to do. Let's not forget that my team contracted me last year to work for Alejandro and my win in the Tour [de France] or my second place in the Tour don't mean I feel bad working for others.

"This was a day when we rode extremely fast. I don't know what happens with cycling currently, but with the ProTour classification and the ProTour team classification it seems there has never a successful breakaway [until today]. Today there were two hours with attack after attack. We were able to put Vladimir Karpets in the breakaway and we saved our team from a hard stage."

Pereiro vowed the team will do everything it can to help Valverde triumph. "We don't put pressure on him; we will take things day by day. The whole team has faith in him and will do its best to try to win the Vuelta with Alejandro."