Itzulia Basque Country: Jury restores Alex Aranburu as stage 3 winner after post-race relegation

On 9 April, the franc-comtois cyclist Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ) won the 3rd stage of the Tour du Pays Basque 2025. An important victory, but won after an unlikely finale: Grégoire, who crossed the line in 2nd, took advantage of the disqualification of Spaniard Aranburu, who had taken a roundabout in the wrong direction.

A comedy of confusion at the Basque Country Tour. Alex Aranburu is officially recognized as the winner of the 3rd stage of Itzulia 2025! The Basque studied the route in advance on home roads and celebrated at the finish, then was disqualified for going the wrong way, but in the end he still won.

It's "a story to give the turn" wrote the newspaper L-Team in its edition...

As Alex Aranburu crossed the finish line of the third stage of the Round the Basque Country race, he celebrated mightily. At twenty-nine, he earned only his ninth professional victory for himself and the fifth for his team Cofidis this season. But he didn't enjoy the intoxicating joys very much. The judges soon removed him from the front row, only to return him to it a few hours later.

Today, cyclists will ride through the lands of Gipuzkoa and Bizkaia, in the fourth stage of the Tour of the Basque Country: it will start in Beasain and finish in Markina-Xemein. Once again, the cyclists will have to face a bumpy route, as they will climb seven passes in almost 170 kilometers. The first six are third-class, but the last part is tough: They will have to overcome Izua, a first-class climb —it is 3.5 kilometers long and has a gradi…

The judges of the International Cycling Union (UCI) this Wednesday gave the victory of stage 3 of the Vuelta al País Vasco to Álex Aranburu, initially disqualified for mistaking a roundabout. “After receiving and reviewing different evidence, including data from Veloviewer, the road book and the information provided by the team, it has been possible to verify that all the information available indicated that the roundabout in question should be …