No more Tour de Suisse and Tour de France - Nairo Quintana suffers hand fracture

Nairo Quintana slowly rose and showed glimpses of his past self at the Giro d'Italia but, outside of it, he has truly had an unlucky season. After several illnesses and injuries suffered earlier in the season, the Colombian has been sidelined once again with a fracture suffered on a crash at the Tour de Suisse.

Quintana earlier in the year was infected with Covid-19 at the Tour Colombia which delayed his European start to the season completely. He crashed twice at the Volta a Catalunya which saw him abandon and miss out on all races before the Giro - which was even briefly in doubt. There, he almost won stage 15 in style - only beaten by Tadej Pogacar - but returned to good form and hoped to put that on display in Suisse.

Movistar came to the Swiss race, which features plenty high mountains, with a stacked squad including Enric Mas who is preparing for the Tour de France and Vuelta a España. Quintana and Einer Rubio who also rode at a high level in the Giro joined him in pursuit of a strong overall classification stint, but Quintana crashed on stage 2, losing a few minutes. However he felt pain following the stage which required check ups.

"Following his fall yesterday Monday during the second stage of the Tour de Suisse, and in light of the pain he was suffering, Nairo underwent radiological tests last night," Movistar wrote on social media this morning. "Quintana suffers from a non-displaced fracture of the fourth metacarpal of his right hand. The Colombian will continue treatment with immobilization and will not take part in the third stage today Tuesday."

With this, the possibility of the Colombian returning to the Tour de France can be eliminated completely, as it will take a few weeks to recover from the injury and the schedule would already be very tight in ideal conditions. Most likely, he will return to Colombia to prepare for the second half of the season, where the Vuelta a España could end up being his priority.