Teams & Riders Nairo Quintana discussion thread

[Escarabajo]

Re: Re:

According to Sergi Lopez Nairo will train permanently in Monaco from now on he won't go to Colombia anymore during his breaks.

Where did you read this? It's not on his Twitter.

http://tourmalet.elperiodico.com/bendito-problema-para-el-movistar/

Well, nowhere I read that Quintana won't go back to Colombia for his breaks.

That would be a waste of his altitude training being close to home. Everybody struggles to find the right place for the altitude training and Quintana finds it on his backyard. I would find it odd to go live somewhere else to train. Just saying. Maybe I am wrong but I see it as odd.

 

[cellardoor]

I know he did the Giro but do you think he was also affected by the fast pace ridden on the flats on many stages?

 

[Billie]

Re:

I know he did the Giro but do you think he was also affected by the fast pace ridden on the flats on many stages?

First two weeks were about as easy as it could be in the Tour. Both route and pace wise.

 

[Escarabajo]

Re:

I know he did the Giro but do you think he was also affected by the fast pace ridden on the flats on many stages?

No. I don't think so.

Maybe in the Giro. And he paid for It in the third week. But I am not sure about that.

 

[carton]

Re: Re:

Well, nowhere I read that Quintana won't go back to Colombia for his breaks.

That would be a waste of his altitude training being close to home. Everybody struggles to find the right place for the altitude training and Quintana finds it on his backyard. I would find it odd to go live somewhere else to train. Just saying. Maybe I am wrong but I see it as odd.

Yeah. Also in the Unsue interview he was asked about it and he seemed to think it was counterproductive.

 

[Tonton]

Re: Re:

According to Sergi Lopez Nairo will train permanently in Monaco from now on he won't go to Colombia anymore during his breaks.

Thats very uplifting news and Im glad for him, I think he knows he needed to do that. Col de la Madone record broken?

Train in Monaco? It's smelling like Sky...does Dave B. think that Dawg is done and he's about to do him Wiggo-style?

Note: all the words are in the right order ...

 

[Iker_Baqueiro]

where in the world is nairo now?

where in the world are the oh so proud nairo fanboys now?

Did the cat eat their tongues?

This is for you:

And now that you've been broken down
got your head out of the clouds
you're back down on the ground
and you don't talk so loud
and you don't walk so proud, anymore
and what for

 

[hfer07]

It's very frustrating to bother reading & listening to all that rubbish about Nairo's perfromance & specially Nairo's future.....

Nairo has a "contract" with Movistar, regardless the arrive of Landa. Nairo will honor it, despite all the nonsense. As far as some "friction" between Unzue & Nairo - I quite frankly see it as a cheap gossip, given the fact that Nairo is the only rider who has won Grand Tours since the Movistar inception, and thus has expanded greatly the brand in South America's market.
So, after all the nonsense/ smoke/rubbish begins to be washed away, the very fact remains that there is huge value in Nairo's contract already imprinted in Movistar's future, and is very unlikely to be disolved over some comments made across the globe on how Nairo failed so badly in this Tour........

 

[Escarabajo]

From the transfer thread:

According to the Gazzetta dello Sport, Quintana and Movistar could end their contract early, with a decision coming maybe already early next week.

They claim that Nairo and the team were in dispute about several aspects of his season, for example him wanting to return to Colombia after his narrow Giro defeat, with the team insisting he would stay in Europe.

The most likely destinations mentioned - in case the breakup happens - would be Trek, Astana or UAE - all discussed beforehand.

Now here's the deal: Movistar and Quintana splitting - in these reports - sounds it's more the Team's intent than the rider's. Nairo is reportedly mentioned to earn 3 M € per year, and to buy him out of his contract, Unzué would have to pay him double that money, so 6 M €. Why not just pay him that amount over the next two seasons and keep him around? I don't really see the point in buying him out right now.

This is big. I didn't know that. I have been critical of Quintana about doing the double and his training, but him not being allowed to go home at altitude where he feels confortable is big news. That puts some of the blame on Unzue. Don't get me wrong I was of the thinking initially that being away from home, from all his crazy media and fans, was a good thing for him. I am not sure anymore and now I see why Quintana would be upset if he was not allowed to do that.
If Unzue wants him in Europe all the time during the racing season, that is going to be a problem and it would be better to part ways unfortunately.

Now this is just gossip I guess. Let's wait.

 

[IndianCyclist]

His last 2 seasons, he has attacked very little because of various reasons of which i also have been critical about. Yet if he is left out, who is there to challenge Froome and Sky. Contador has retired. Nibali is Slongoed. Bardet and Uran could be seen doing nothing in the TDF. Pinot does not yet have that level. Dumoulin will only come if there are TTs. Barguil is yet to prove himself. Landa wont have the loyalty of his team. Valverde is next to retiring. He is the only rider to have dropped Froome conclusively and he can do it again.

 

[Red Rick]

Quite a few riders who could get close in the next few years, but it will take a while for the next top climber to arrive. Quintana not at Sky is still better in every sense of the word.

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

Re:

From the transfer thread:

According to the Gazzetta dello Sport, Quintana and Movistar could end their contract early, with a decision coming maybe already early next week.

They claim that Nairo and the team were in dispute about several aspects of his season, for example him wanting to return to Colombia after his narrow Giro defeat, with the team insisting he would stay in Europe.

The most likely destinations mentioned - in case the breakup happens - would be Trek, Astana or UAE - all discussed beforehand.

Now here's the deal: Movistar and Quintana splitting - in these reports - sounds it's more the Team's intent than the rider's. Nairo is reportedly mentioned to earn 3 M € per year, and to buy him out of his contract, Unzué would have to pay him double that money, so 6 M €. Why not just pay him that amount over the next two seasons and keep him around? I don't really see the point in buying him out right now.

This is big. I didn't know that. I have been critical of Quintana about doing the double and his training, but him not being allowed to go home at altitude where he feels confortable is big news. That puts some of the blame on Unzue. Don't get me wrong I was of the thinking initially that being away from home, from all his crazy media and fans, was a good thing for him. I am not sure anymore and now I see why Quintana would be upset if he was not allowed to do that.
If Unzue wants him in Europe all the time during the racing season, that is going to be a problem and it would be better to part ways unfortunately.

Now this is just gossip I guess. Let's wait.

All things point to Quintana staying with Movistar for 2018 and 2019, according to the article on the front page:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/quintana-expected-to-stay-at-movistar-despite-transfer-reports/

 

[hazaran]

No ***, you can't move team asking 2x your salary and 4x your worth after a terrible season.

 

[Red Rick]

I don't think Quintana's value dropped that much this year. His Giro was better than the 2016 Tour, and it doesn't undo the fact that when he peaks right he's the best climber in the world. Quintana will probably have an idea where the Giro went wrong.

In fact, the Tour showed that even a weak Froome easily wins the Tour without a good Quitnana there.

 

[hrotha]

Re:

Quintana will probably have an idea where the Giro went wrong.

Knowing Quintana and the Friars, I'm sure their answer to that is "IN THE ITT!!!!!11".

 

[hazaran]

Re:

I don't think Quintana's value dropped that much this year. His Giro was better than the 2016 Tour, and it doesn't undo the fact that when he peaks right he's the best climber in the world. Quintana will probably have an idea where the Giro went wrong.

In fact, the Tour showed that even a weak Froome easily wins the Tour without a good Quitnana there.

Worth isn't purely about results, most of it is driven by trajectory and growth potential - hence why someone keeps paying Porte millions for crashing or puncturing out of a Tour podium..

In that metric, this has been a tremendously bad season. He probably got his last contract by convincing them that if the stars align or a year or two pass he can beat Froome. But now it's 2017 and he's beaten in the Giro by a 26 year old Dumoulin about to hit his biological peak and a Froome carbon-copy.

 

[movingtarget]

Re:

I don't think Quintana's value dropped that much this year. His Giro was better than the 2016 Tour, and it doesn't undo the fact that when he peaks right he's the best climber in the world. Quintana will probably have an idea where the Giro went wrong.

In fact, the Tour showed that even a weak Froome easily wins the Tour without a good Quitnana there.

Yeah I have to admit for all of the talk about Quintana's youth compared to Froome, he isn't getting any closer to winning the Tour and looking at his Giro form I'm not sure he wins the Tour without the Giro this year. One thing has improved, his TT but not enough to beat Dumoulin and Froome on overall. Age will eventually beat Froome and I think this year was the beginning of that. But against Uran and Bardet it didn't matter much. I still think the stars aligned for Froome because of Porte's disappearance from the race. Even if Porte didn't win the race, the mountains would have been more agggressive. Valverde and Fuglsang also could have added something to those stages. Froome looked close to cracking to me and he did crack in the Dauphine and his form after that improved but not by as much as many expected. I still think that Froome can be beaten next year. Easier said than done.

 

[Pricey_sky]

Re: Re:

I don't think Quintana's value dropped that much this year. His Giro was better than the 2016 Tour, and it doesn't undo the fact that when he peaks right he's the best climber in the world. Quintana will probably have an idea where the Giro went wrong.

In fact, the Tour showed that even a weak Froome easily wins the Tour without a good Quitnana there.

Yeah I have to admit for all of the talk about Quintana's youth compared to Froome, he isn't getting any closer to winning the Tour and looking at his Giro form I'm not sure he wins the Tour without the Giro this year. One thing has improved, his TT but not enough to beat Dumoulin and Froome on overall. Age will eventually beat Froome and I think this year was the beginning of that. But against Uran and Bardet it didn't matter much. I still think the stars aligned for Froome because of Porte's disappearance from the race. Even if Porte didn't win the race, the mountains would have been more agggressive. Valverde and Fuglsang also could have added something to those stages. Froome looked close to cracking to me and he did crack in the Dauphine and his form after that improved but not by as much as many expected. I still think that Froome can be beaten next year. Easier said than done.

Open to interpretation I suppose, but bar the Peyragudes stage I don't think Froome was in much trouble at all this Tour, not even a yo-yo.

If Quintana can regain that peak climbing form then he can crack Froome, especially as age catches up with him. Of course he's always going to be vulnerable to Froome and Dumoulin in the TT's, but on a balanced route he is good enough to win a Tour. However, If what we've seen in GT's over the past 2 years is his ceiling in the mountains, then he needs to hope there is little TT again in next year's Tour.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re: Re:

I don't think Quintana's value dropped that much this year. His Giro was better than the 2016 Tour, and it doesn't undo the fact that when he peaks right he's the best climber in the world. Quintana will probably have an idea where the Giro went wrong.

In fact, the Tour showed that even a weak Froome easily wins the Tour without a good Quitnana there.

Yeah I have to admit for all of the talk about Quintana's youth compared to Froome, he isn't getting any closer to winning the Tour and looking at his Giro form I'm not sure he wins the Tour without the Giro this year. One thing has improved, his TT but not enough to beat Dumoulin and Froome on overall. Age will eventually beat Froome and I think this year was the beginning of that. But against Uran and Bardet it didn't matter much. I still think the stars aligned for Froome because of Porte's disappearance from the race. Even if Porte didn't win the race, the mountains would have been more agggressive. Valverde and Fuglsang also could have added something to those stages. Froome looked close to cracking to me and he did crack in the Dauphine and his form after that improved but not by as much as many expected. I still think that Froome can be beaten next year. Easier said than done.

Open to interpretation I suppose, but bar the Peyragudes stage I don't think Froome was in much trouble at all this Tour, not even a yo-yo.

If Quintana can regain that peak climbing form then he can crack Froome, especially as age catches up with him. Of course he's always going to be vulnerable to Froome and Dumoulin in the TT's, but on a balanced route he is good enough to win a Tour. However, If what we've seen in GT's over the past 2 years is his ceiling in the mountains, then he needs to hope there is little TT again in next year's Tour.

Thats mianly because Froome doesn't utilise the yo-yo tactic in Tour de France, the Vuelta is reserved for that every year.

All Quintana needs is 1) a decent to good route with opportunities for a rider like him and 2) to be in great shape, similarly to Tour de France 2015 and Vuelta a Espana 2016. Then he easily can win considering Froome is slowing down (but he and his team has masked that fact very well).

 

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

I don't think Quintana's value dropped that much this year. His Giro was better than the 2016 Tour, and it doesn't undo the fact that when he peaks right he's the best climber in the world. Quintana will probably have an idea where the Giro went wrong.

In fact, the Tour showed that even a weak Froome easily wins the Tour without a good Quitnana there.

Yeah I have to admit for all of the talk about Quintana's youth compared to Froome, he isn't getting any closer to winning the Tour and looking at his Giro form I'm not sure he wins the Tour without the Giro this year. One thing has improved, his TT but not enough to beat Dumoulin and Froome on overall. Age will eventually beat Froome and I think this year was the beginning of that. But against Uran and Bardet it didn't matter much. I still think the stars aligned for Froome because of Porte's disappearance from the race. Even if Porte didn't win the race, the mountains would have been more agggressive. Valverde and Fuglsang also could have added something to those stages. Froome looked close to cracking to me and he did crack in the Dauphine and his form after that improved but not by as much as many expected. I still think that Froome can be beaten next year. Easier said than done.

Open to interpretation I suppose, but bar the Peyragudes stage I don't think Froome was in much trouble at all this Tour, not even a yo-yo.

If Quintana can regain that peak climbing form then he can crack Froome, especially as age catches up with him. Of course he's always going to be vulnerable to Froome and Dumoulin in the TT's, but on a balanced route he is good enough to win a Tour. However, If what we've seen in GT's over the past 2 years is his ceiling in the mountains, then he needs to hope there is little TT again in next year's Tour.

Thats mianly because Froome doesn't utilise the yo-yo tactic in Tour de France, the Vuelta is reserved for that every year.

All Quintana needs is 1) a decent to good route with opportunities for a rider like him and 2) to be in great shape, similarly to Tour de France 2015 and Vuelta a Espana 2016. Then he easily can win considering Froome is slowing down (but he and his team has masked that fact very well).

He didn't use it in the Vuelta last year either after losing over half a minute doing it on Lagos de Covadonga. I think he realised it's a busted flush as a tactic against a climber of similar ability who was prepared to just TT to the line from that point, and who wasn't interested in playing the cat and mouse games like the three amigos used to do.

 

[Pricey_sky]

Re: Re:

I don't think Quintana's value dropped that much this year. His Giro was better than the 2016 Tour, and it doesn't undo the fact that when he peaks right he's the best climber in the world. Quintana will probably have an idea where the Giro went wrong.

In fact, the Tour showed that even a weak Froome easily wins the Tour without a good Quitnana there.

Yeah I have to admit for all of the talk about Quintana's youth compared to Froome, he isn't getting any closer to winning the Tour and looking at his Giro form I'm not sure he wins the Tour without the Giro this year. One thing has improved, his TT but not enough to beat Dumoulin and Froome on overall. Age will eventually beat Froome and I think this year was the beginning of that. But against Uran and Bardet it didn't matter much. I still think the stars aligned for Froome because of Porte's disappearance from the race. Even if Porte didn't win the race, the mountains would have been more agggressive. Valverde and Fuglsang also could have added something to those stages. Froome looked close to cracking to me and he did crack in the Dauphine and his form after that improved but not by as much as many expected. I still think that Froome can be beaten next year. Easier said than done.

Open to interpretation I suppose, but bar the Peyragudes stage I don't think Froome was in much trouble at all this Tour, not even a yo-yo.

If Quintana can regain that peak climbing form then he can crack Froome, especially as age catches up with him. Of course he's always going to be vulnerable to Froome and Dumoulin in the TT's, but on a balanced route he is good enough to win a Tour. However, If what we've seen in GT's over the past 2 years is his ceiling in the mountains, then he needs to hope there is little TT again in next year's Tour.

Thats mianly because Froome doesn't utilise the yo-yo tactic in Tour de France, the Vuelta is reserved for that every year.

All Quintana needs is 1) a decent to good route with opportunities for a rider like him and 2) to be in great shape, similarly to Tour de France 2015 and Vuelta a Espana 2016. Then he easily can win considering Froome is slowing down (but he and his team has masked that fact very well).

He'd have needed the yo-yo if he was close to cracking as the poster above suggested, he was never that far in the red bar Peyragudes.

Disagree about Vuelta 2016 form being good enough to win a Tour, Froome limited losses to Quintana well enough to gain red in the TT but lost it due to the Formigal stage, that's unlikely to happen with the Sky A-team in the Tour, that's why I said he needs to regain form from 2 years ago.

 

[dacooley]

nothing in 2016 and 2017 indicates that peak form Quintana is a comfortably stronger climber than say Bardet or Uran in this years tour. the image of being by far the best climber in the world when needed (the 2015 tour) has dissolved, that's the thing Nairo will have to prove once again. it's been 2 years since then and one cannot give such a big credit based on those toussuire and duez stages.

 

[Escarabajo]

I would argue Vuelta 2016 was good as well. Some people might say that riders are tired but I don't buy that theory for a GT. We have seen some great performances over the years at the Vuelta.

Blockhauss was good as well.

I just think the problem is something else. Not that his peak was 2 years ago.

 

[dacooley]

Re:

I would argue Vuelta 2016 was good as well. Some people might say that riders are tired but I don't buy that theory for a GT. We have seen some great performances over the years at the Vuelta.

Blockhauss was good as well.

I just think the problem is something else. Not that his peak was 2 years ago.

quintana was very good, but not miraculously good in the Vuelta. Being in a perfect fit condition is what needs to win the Tour. Replicating the formigal scenario in the tour is highly unlikely, that's not the type of situations any big gc contender can seriously count on and hope for.

 

[Alexandre B.]

https://twitter.com/NairoQuinCo/status/897941346127826945
En 2018 iré junto al @Movistar_Team por @LeTour