After taking second and third in the Tour de France, Movistar’s Alejandro Valverde and Nairo Quintana are due to repeat their double act as co-leaders in the Vuelta a España, Movistar sports director José Luis Arrieta tells Cyclingnews.
The Vuelta is a race in which the Movistar duo have had mixed fortunes in the past, ranging from victory to injuries and abandons. Valverde took an outright win in 2009, his sole Grand Tour triumph to date. He also has an impressive collection of podium positions and stage wins in his palmares, the most recent being in 2014 when he finished third overall and took one of his most impressive Grand Tour stage wins in La Zubia in the first week. Valverde’s first Grand Tour podium was as long ago as the 2003 Vuelta, where he won on the Envalira in Andorra and again in La Pandera summit finish in Jaen, en route to third overall. All at the age of just 23.
In the 2014 Vuelta, Nairo Quintana crashed out, injured after briefly leading in the Vuelta’s first week. Quintana has only completed la Vuelta once, in 2012 when he rode in support of Valverde, and raced it twice, but has never, unlike Valverde, done a Tour-Vuelta double.
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But despite his relative inexperience in the Spanish Grand Tour, and the voyage in the dark for Quintana when it comes to taking part in two Grand Tours so close together in time - last year he did the Giro and Vuelta - the 25-year-old’s climbing ability in a race with nine summit finishes make the Colombian a much-feared contender.
Movistar were criticised in some quarters for an excessively conservative approach in the third week of the Tour, as they simultaneously fought to both dislodge Froome and maintain both their riders on the podium.
But whilst the internet forum jury is out on that particular question, probably permanently, on the plus side there were no rumours of any internal power struggle between Valverde and Quintana. The two, therefore, look set to act as a formidably strong joint challenge in la Vuelta.
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