'I'd have liked to say goodbye there' - Nairo Quintana reacts to Vuelta omission

The Colombian announced in March that he would retire at the end of this season, and he was expected to sign off at the Vuelta, ten years on from his overall victory in the race. On Tuesday, however, Movistar confirmed that he was surplus to requirements in a team built around Enric Mas and Cian Uijtdebroeks.

Speaking on Caracol Radio, Quintana insisted that missing out on the Vuelta had not affected his relationship with Movistar, where he has spent the bulk of his career.

“It’s still a good one,” Quintana said. “It’s been my team all my life, I’ve raced a great deal for them, and you have to understand the decisions.

“They’ve chosen the riders who will represent them in the Vuelta and, in the end, I’ve been left out. Now it’s a case of carrying on cycling and looking ahead to the goals for the rest of this year, which is the final year of my career.” 

Quintana turned professional with Movistar in 2012, and he would quickly establish himself as the focal point of the team after placing second overall at the following year’s Tour de France. 

He would go on to win the Giro d’Italia in 2014 before achieving two more Tour podium finishes, though he would ultimately fall short of what the Movistar marketing team pitched as his sueño amarillo – his yellow dream.

In 2016, Quintana gained revenge on his old rival Chris Froome by beating him to the Vuelta, but he would lose the pink jersey to Tom Dumoulin on the final day of the 2017 Giro, and he would fall further from Tour contention in the years that followed. 

Quintana’s relationship with the team seemed strained by the time he left at the end of 2019, and he enjoyed a renaissance of sorts in the early part of his move to Arkéa-Samsic. He would be stripped of sixth place on the 2022 Tour after testing positive for Tramadol, however, and although the offence was not sanctionable with a ban, he found himself without a team for the 2023 season.

Movistar surprisingly threw Quintana a lifeline ahead of the 2024 season, and he would spend three seasons with the team. He never scaled the same heights during his second coming, though he came close to a Giro d’Italia stage victory in Livigno in 2024 and he won the Vuelta Asturias earlier this year.

Speaking to Caracol Radio, Quintana expressed gratitude to Movistar for “all this wonderful history we’ve made together,” though he added a note of disappointment on missing out on the Vuelta: “Ten years ago, I won the Vuelta a España, and I would have liked to say goodbye there.”

It is not clear if Quintana will race again in Movistar colours, but he plans to end his pro career at the World Championships in Montreal next month before a farewell on home roads with a Gran Fondo in Cartagena in October. “I feel very happy because I will be able to represent my country in such an important event,” he said of the Worlds.