Nairo Quintana Shifts Focus to Stage Victories at Giro d’Italia
Nairo Quintana, 34, has announced that he will be stage hunting at this year’s Giro d’Italia. The Colombian racer originally had plans to compete for the overall win, but has scaled back his ambitions. “I know that I will not be at the best level, but we are going to look for stage victories and mountain stages,” he told AS Colombia.
Due to a crash at the Volta a Catalunya in March, Quintana sustained several injuries, including a ruptured ligament. His recovery has been painful and ongoing.
In order to alleviate strain on his sternum and collarbone, Quintana has opted for mountain biking, leading to a fractured preparation for the Giro d’Italia, as reported by GCN. Despite this setback, Quintana, the 2014 Giro winner, remains resolute in his intention to make a comeback to the race, marking his first participation since finishing second to Tom Dumoulin in 2017.
Quintana told AS Colombia, “We are going to get to the Giro d’Italia, maybe not in the way we want or in the best conditions, but we are going to ride well, and surely at the end of the last week, I will be much better than at the beginning.”
The Colombian’s career has been on and off for the past several years. Certainly, his name was tarnished after he tested positive for tramadol, which resulted in his disqualification from the 2022 Tour de France. Quintana came in sixth overall that year, but his results were thrown out, and he did not race at all in 2023.
Although the painkiller in his system was not banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency at the time, it was prohibited by the sport’s governing body (UCI).
Quintana’s initial break in the sport came in 2013 when he finished second to Chris Froome in the Tour de France. Then, in 2014, with his Giro victory, he became Colombia’s first Grand Tour winner since Luis Herrara in 1987.
The Movistar climber will continue recovering from injury until the start of the Giro on May 4. He’s won three stages in the Italian tour and will look to add to that total. If he does manage a stage win this year, it will be his first in Movistar kit since the 2019 Vuelta a España.
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