A year after Movistar rolled into Madrid as the overall winners of their country’s biggest bike race with Nairo Quintana, it’s been a very different kind of Vuelta a España in 2017 for Spain’s top team.
Movistar’s original leader for the Vuelta a España, 2009 winner Alejandro Valverde, was badly injured in a high speed crash in the Tour and could not take part. Quintana, after doing the Tour and Giro d’Italia was not a option either.
As a result, twelve months after one of their best Vueltas in years, Movistar radically altered their objectives in 2017 to a focus of testing out their younger riders, getting into breakaways and playing a role of outsider rather than game-maker. That initial plan gained momentum after one of their two most experienced GC riders, Carlos Betancur crashed out in the first week injured and the other, Dani Moreno, whilst in good shape, lost time in another early pile-up. Jose Joaquin Rojas, meanwhile, has been in numerous breakaways - six - but his best result was second behind Matteo Trentin (QuickStep Floors) on home soil in Alhama de Murcia - Movistar’s best result in the entire Vuelta.
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“This hasn’t been a difficult Vuelta, it’s been a different one,” Pablo Lastras, sports director at Movistar, told Cyclingnews.
“We came here with the objective that the riders could learn, and the pity is that they’ve been in all the good breaks, but we haven’t ended up scoring a goal.”
“The lack of a stage win has maybe blurred the clarity of our objectives, which were building up younger riders as good as Richard Carapaz" - 11th on the Angliru - “or Antontio Pedrero. Rojas has consolidated his role in the team, and there have been days when Dani Moreno did well, too.”
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