After two second places in the Tour de France behind Chris Froome (Team Sky), when it comes to ruling the roost in cycling’s biggest bike race, Nairo Quintana (Movistar Team) believes next July it will be time for what he calls “a change of dynasties.”
For the second successive time at the Tour de France, Quintana emerged as Froome’s main challenger in 2015. The main difference was that this time, unlike in 2013, Quintana had no advantage of being a relatively unknown quantity who could fly ‘under the radar’. And yet, he did far better.
Although, losing time on the rain-lashed stage 2 was not on Quintana’s plans, the Colombian then rode well through the cobbled stages and tricky finishes of the first week and Movistar were a mere four seconds behind BMC in the team time trial. Although Quintana, like all Froome’s other rivals, lost a significant chunk of time at La Pierre St. Martin, he was the best-placed of them, taking third behind Froome and Richie Porte. Last but not least, in the third week, Quintana dropped Froome both at La Toussuire and Alpe d’Huez, the latter an ascent described by Froome, at that point suffering from a chest infection, as “touch and go at some points”, with the yellow jersey up for grabs.
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Froome tenaciously held on to his lead, though, and the final result in Paris was that Quintana ended second overall for the second time in three years behind Froome. But, having reduced Froome’s overall advantage in 2015 from 4-20 to just over a minute, the 26-year-old Colombian confirms that the yellow jersey of the Tour de France will be at the top of his list for next July, and that after two [unsuccessful] attempts, the third time could be when things finally change.
“Everybody is beatable and nobody’s immortal,” Quintana told Cyclingnews during Movistar’s first training camp for 2016. “Chris Froome is an extremely strong rider; he’s won very important races. But I’ve been showing I’ve been getting stronger as each year goes by, and that means I can beat him.”
Quintana recognises that Froome’s superiority at La Pierre St. Martin in last year’s Tour was unquestionable, even though “I was in good shape, and the data from that day shows that. Looking around, behind me, there was a long line of rivals who had cracked beforehand.
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