Analysis | What to expect from Movistar Team at the Giro d'Italia 2024?

Movistar Team lands in the Giro d'Italia 2024 with the need to do well after a difficult start to the season. In 2023, Movistar Team achieved more than decent results thanks to a very active Einer Rubio, who won a stage and finished eleventh in the general classification.

Thus, it will be the Colombians who will try to give luster to the telephone squad in the Corsa Rosa: Fernando Gaviria will also repeat, trying to take some sprint and Nairo Quintana to try to achieve some victory in mountain stages. For the breakaways, we'll see what men like Pelayo Sanchez and Ruben Guerreiro are capable of. We analyse together with CiclismoAlDia's Juan Larra.

ANALYSIS OF THE POSSIBLE MOVISTAR TEAM FOR THE GIRO D'ITALIA 2024

EINER RUBIO

We imagine that he will be the overall man for a telephone team that doesn't like to race without a leader. He will try to beat last year's 11th place and get into the top 10. That will make it difficult for him to fight for another stage win unless he loses time and can sneak into a breakaway. Objectively, he seems to be the most serious candidate to do something important in the Giro d'Italia 2024.

NAIRO QUINTANA

An absolute madness that he will race the Giro d'Italia after the lack of preparation he may have had during 2024. Since the Tour de France 2022 Nairo has barely been able to race the Colombian National Championships in 2023 and 2024, the Tour Colombia (finishing 26th overall with Covid) and the Volta a Catalunya (where he had to withdraw after a fall after completing six stages). Thus, he has not raced since March 24 and will now embark on the toughest stage race in the international calendar.

We do not doubt the ambition of Nairo, but it must be said that these days he is not concentrating in Sierra Nevada or racing a race, he is in Colombia promoting his Gran Fondo. We know he's training, but it doesn't seem the best way to prepare your return to a grand tour after a year and a half of absence.

FERNANDO GAVIRIA

In 2023 he was the only major sprinter to take part in the Giro who left without winning a single stage. He finished with four top 10s and his best result was a fifth. This year he won a stage in Colombia, although he was later beaten by Mark Cavendish.

In the UAE Tour, when he faced WorldTour sprinters, he couldn't finish higher than sixth. Then he was 14th in Classic Brugge-De Panne and didn't finish Gent-Wevelgem. In theory he is preparing for the track competition at the Olympics. He will not be asked to win, but at perform to score as much as possible in the mass sprints that will take place.

PELAYO SANCHEZ

Pelayo started the season by winning the Trofeo Pollença and since then he passed without any glory in Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, UAE Tour, GP Miguel Induráin and Itzulia Basque Country, where he had to abandon due to a fall. Now he will try to get in shape in the Asturias. He already showed in the last Vuelta a España that he is a cyclist with class to filter in some mountain breakaway and opt to get a stage victory. One of the most exciting of the '8'.

RUBEN GUERREIRO

Ruben Guerreiro started his Movistar Team career in 2023 in style with a partial and overall win at the Saudi Tour. Then in O Gran Camiño he finished third overall with two second places in stages. However, since then, nothing at all: Movistar is not going well and surely they hope he can get some partial triumph.

WILL BARTA

After having a really bad time in recent years, he won a stage in the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana at the beginning of the year. Since then, however, nothing at all, going unnoticed in O Gran Camiño, Paris-Nice and Tour of the Alps. It looks like his last big chance to prove that he is still a dangerous puncheur capable of winning races.

DAVIDE CIMOLAI

He'll probably be Fernando Gaviria's man of trust, who will have to find his own way in the sprints but who will have the Italian as his man of trust to put him in the right position before the volt. If the Colombian fails, he will have to be the one to try for good positions in the sprints;

LORENZO MILESI

We can ask little or nothing from the young Milesi, who we imagine will be a key man on the flat for leader Einer Rubio and who, above all, will continue to accumulate kilometers of experience in grand tours (let's hope he has more luck than in the last Vuelta España when he had to abandon on the sixth day).