Far from the madding crowds that had one point threatened to disrupt their rhythm on the way up the climb to La Croix Peinte, Nairo Quintana and his Movistar comrades enjoyed an impromptu picnic on the edge of a football field in Plumelec on Sunday evening following the Tour de France’s stage 9 team time trial.
With their team bus already making the transfer south to Pau for the Tour’s first rest day, the Movistar riders had to shower and change inside the Complex Sportif de la Madeleine after the stage. Adriano Malori was the first to re-emerge with a paper plate in hand, and he opted to sit on the grass and eat his recovery meal outside rather than aboard the stuffy charter coach waiting to bring the late finishers to Lorient airport.
In ones and twos, Quintana and the rest of his teammates eventually filed out and joined him, enjoying the novelty of a meal alfresco and a rare moment’s tranquillity amid the hubbub of the Tour’s seemingly incessant demands. Their laughter was that of simple relief at reaching the Tour’s rest day, and of contentment, perhaps, at a job well done.
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Movistar finished the stage in third place, just four seconds down on winners BMC and three behind Team Sky, meaning that Quintana reaches the conclusion of the Tour’s opening act in ninth place overall, 1:59 down on the yellow jersey of Chris Froome.
“Being up there with the time trial specialists is very good,” Quintana had said at the finish area. “We have specialists in the team too who were very good on the flatter parts and then we climbers helped where the terrain suited us. We lost out narrowly on the stage but we’ve gained ground on some of our other rivals.”
Indeed, Movistar finished some 31 seconds clear of Vincenzo Nibali’s Astana and 24 clear of Alberto Contador’s Tinkoff-Saxo squad, meaning that Quintana reaches the Tour’s first rest day ahead of Nibali on general classification and within a minute of Contador.
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