2011 Euskaltel–Euskadi season

The Asturian rode with the race's top favorites all day, and came third behind Philippe Gilbert and Joaquim Rodríguez atop the Mur de Huy at the finish.

Antón similarly made all the day's selections and finished 11th in this group, as he built his form for the Giro d'Italia.

[18] Later in April at the Gran Premio de Llodio, Nieve rode to eighth-place finishing with the first chase group behind a solo winner.

Sánchez held the Clásica de San Sebastián as a target for his season, hoping to be the first Euskaltel-Euskadi rider to win the race.

[30] Sánchez rode at the front of the race most of the day, until the winner Philippe Gilbert made his signature solo attack to earn victory.

[31] Izagirre just missed the podium at the Prueba Villafranca de Ordizia, finishing fourth in a five-man escape that decided the race.

[45][46] At the Tour de Romandie, Castroviejo took a relatively rare time trial win for the team, coming home mere tenths of a second better than Taylor Phinney and Leigh Howard in the 3.5 km (2.2 mi) prologue.

Defending champion Sánchez won the first stage, atop San Juan del Monte, by outkicking Joaquim Rodríguez in sight of the line as the two finished four seconds better than any other riders.

The squad placed three riders in the top ten, with Sánchez fourth, Antón eighth, and Nieve tenth.

Euskaltel-Euskadi has in their history been reticent to ride the Giro d'Italia, favoring the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España instead.

After first indicating a reluctant willingness to participate as per the requirements of holding a ProTeam license,[69] the team later stated that they intended to seek overall victory in the race with Antón.

[70] Antón was named as the leader of the squad, which included Nieve, Oroz, Isasi, Aramendía, Azanza, Cazaux, Sesma and Minguez to ride in support.

[71] Antón tempered the expectations somewhat, saying that a stage win would be nice, as would General Classification success should it come, but that he was only banking on riding for the overall at the Vuelta a España.

Antón's ride on stage 13 ending at Grossglockner in Austria moved him into the top ten overall for the first time, at seventh place, though he was again distanced from Contador at the front of the race and lay over four minutes down.

Riding for a time with Contador and Joaquim Rodríguez, who had bridged up, Antón put in another attack with 6 km (3.7 mi) left to go, and surpassed the remaining riders from the morning breakaway to occupy first position on the road.

Nieve won the stage, and as he approached the finish line he attempted to raise his arms in a gesture of triumph, but he found himself too fatigued to do even that.

Martínez, Verdugo, Txurruka, Velasco, Urtasun, Izagirre, and Rubén and Alan Pérez were also named to the squad.

Near the end of stage 1, two crashes greatly reduced the number of riders who contested the finish at the Mont des Alouettes.

Movistar Team's Rui Costa took the victory alone a few seconds ahead of the field, but Sánchez finished fourth, in the first large group, improving his position to 29th.

Sánchez effectively stayed with the group of overall favorites throughout the day, and attacked with Omega Pharma–Lotto's Jelle Vanendert on the way up to Luz Ardiden, surpassing the morning breakaway.

Starting his sprint for the finish line from 250 m (820 ft) out, Sánchez won so convincingly that he opened up a 7-second time gap on Vanendert.

[93] The next day, by winning the Col d'Aubisque climb, Jérémy Roy took the mountains classification lead from Sánchez.

He was joined in the squad by fellow Giro d'Italia stage winner Nieve, Martínez, Verdugo, Txurruka, Oroz, Isasi, Azanza and Cazaux.

He said that even on the flat third stage he had come close to losing time to the peloton, and that while there was a long way left to race, he effectively ruled himself out of overall contention.

[112] The team was extremely active in stage 15 on Angliru, to the point that one post-race analysis suggested they "left it all" on the climb.

Antón crossed the line in sixth place, a minute and 21 seconds down on stage winner and eventual Vuelta champion Juan José Cobo.

[114] Antón and Nieve finished together in stage 17 on Peña Cabarga, 27 seconds back of eventual Vuelta runner-up Chris Froome for fifth and sixth place.

Antón won the climb at the Puerto de las Muñecas, which was the point when the race officially entered the Basque Country for the first time.

This gained him a time gap over breakaway mate Marzio Bruseghin that he held to the finish in Bilbao, winning the stage.

[116] Antón said of his ride “This is an historical win for Euskaltel-Euskadi!” and that he had specifically targeted this stage after his poor form earlier in the race destroyed his overall chances.