Nairo Quintana and Movistar Team: A marriage that reconciles years later despite a nasty breakup

Nairo Quintana will return to ride for Movistar Team from 2024 closing an incredible love story between the Colombian rider and the Navarre squad that began in 2012 and that at the end of 2019 seemed to separate their paths forever.

However, as happens in many relationships, absence makes the heart grow fonder and Quintana, after being rejected by half the peloton, returns home almost for Christmas.

It has not been easy for the rider from Bocayá to re-sign for a WorldTour team after his double positive for tramadol during the Tour de France 2022. He made the serious mistake of appealing his sanction (which he had already served by simply being excluded from that TDF in which he had finished sixth) to the CAS, which made the UCI take a public stand against him and treat him as one more doped rider despite the fact that tramadol was not considered doping at that time;

He had agreed his renewal with Arkéa Samsic, a team that he almost single-handedly managed to climb to the WorldTour and is now struggling without him, but the deal was closed. The French team belongs to the organization Movement for a Credible Cycling (MPCC), which has publicly vilified the Colombian every time they have asked about him.

Thus, during the last year Nairo has been systematically sounding for half of the peloton and there are many sports directors who, in the first person, have denied the rumors and have publicly stated that they did not want him.

Finally, after being rumored a few months ago, Nairo lands in Movistar Team, we imagine that he will have a completely different role to the one he had in his first stage in the telephone team. Or not. Because the truth is that beyond Enric Mas Movistar has not proven to have any rider capable of leading the team in a grand tour and Nairo could do it.