I'm back from my break and as is usual whenever I go away, I miss some quite interesting developments in the world of pro-cycling, not least the news of a possible merger between Liquigas and SaxoBank minus Vincenzo Nibali who looks to have jumped to the Astana ship for 2013, quite how that will effect his Tour de France I'm unsure. However, as you will know I have been covering the Euskaltel-Euskadi in depth this year and the last couple of days have seen some interesting developments...


It was with horror that the first article of cycling related news I read upon my return home was that Euskaltel Euskadi's biggest rider, Olympic champion Samuel Sanchez was considering offers from other teams as a direct result of Euskaltel's position and not being able to guarantee Sanchez a ride unless they landed a much needed sponsorship deal for 2013. Offers had come in from other teams and those offers have come with a deadline, if Euskaltel couldn't get Sanchez a contract in time, the Basque lad would leave his home team, not out of choice, but out of necessity. His final comment on the situation was merely: "I do not want to give ultimatums or deadlines, but it would be desirable if we all had clear ideas before the Tour, knowing whether we have a team or not." Sanchez though could have bigger problems, back to that in a minute...

This afternoon however, it has been announced that Euskaltel will continue to ride for the next 3 years thanks to chief sponsor, telecoms giant Euskaltel who have announce they will triple their sponsorship from 3million euros per annum to a much needed 9million, effective replacing the financial input of the Euskadi Foundation in previous years as they withdraw their backing though lower level funding will still be provided by Basque public institutions, including the Basque Government. This in itself is a fantastic outcome at a time when even the worlds biggest cycling teams are struggling and mergers are becoming the only tool for ensuring survival at the top level, the latest of which could be Liquigas and Saxo Bank...