He raced Mallorca and Valencia. His off season was fine, typically of him. He started off fine in Mallorca with a podium. Valencia started off ok with a 2nd on the end stage and then it fell apart on Saturday where he finished over a minute back. He and the team have literally not said anything other strictly race reports. The riders have not said anything at all and basically have closed ranks around him. From comments before Valencia the Olympics are his main goal. Before Valencia is when that interview took place. He said that he is retiring at the end of 2021. He has a contract through 2024 with Movistar, but the final 3 years were written as to be determined and it appears from things he's saying that he's going coach for the final 3 years of the contract and may very well stay with the team as a coach for longer. He does love riding and has said that once he retires he'll keep riding and doing his normal group training rides. He also rides with his amateur team when he's coaching them. He'll likely do a lot more of that. His calendar for this year is: Mallorca, Valencia, Murcia, UAE, Strade Bianche, Catalonia, the Ardennes, (maybe a race in June), Tour (leave early for the Olympics), Olympics, Vuelta, Words. After his struggling at Valencia I suspect next year he may only race the Spanish calendar and not race outside Spain at all. I also highly suspect la Vuelta 2021 will be his final farewell to his fans. Based on his results last year and what we saw at Valencia he won't have many wins this year or next year. Hopefully he can pull of something. Last year he got the one thing he wanted which was a stage win in the rainbow jersey at la Vuelta and the one thing he was afraid to dream of which was the final podium at la Vuelta in the rainbow jersey. His consistency is gone.
I can't give you any names to consider for following when he retires, because for me once he retires I won't spend the time and energy to find feeds of races because no one else in the peloton is worth that time and energy to me. I'll basically just look for the "box score" because none of the younger cyclists have given me a good reason to spend that time and energy to find races to watch them. I just don't care enough about anyone else in the peloton for that. Being in the US very, very few races are on TV.