Nairo Quintana

Nairo Quintana

Personal information
Full name	Nairo Alexander Quintana Rojas
Born	(1990-02-04) 4 February 1990 Cómbita, Boyacá, Colombia[1]
Height	1.67 m (5 ft 6 in)[2]
Weight	58 kg (128 lb; 9.1 st)[2]
Team information
Current team	Movistar Team
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Rider type	Climbing specialist
Professional team(s)
2009	Boyaca es para Vivirla
2010–2011	Café de Colombia-Colombia es Pasión
2012–	Movistar Team
Major wins
Grand Tours Tour de France Mountains classification (2013) Young rider classification (2013) 1 individual stage (2013) Giro d'Italia General classification (2014) Young rider classification (2014) 2 individual stages (2014) Stage races Tour of the Basque Country (2013) Tirreno–Adriatico (2015) Vuelta a Burgos (2013, 2014) Tour de l'Avenir (2010) Route du Sud (2012) Vuelta a Murcia (2012) Tour de San Luis (2014) One-day races and Classics Giro dell'Emilia (2012)
Infobox last updated on 17March 2015

Nairo Alexander Quintana Rojas, ODB, (born 4 February 1990) is a Colombian racing cyclist, currently riding for the Movistar Team.^[3][4] Quintana is a specialist climber, known for his ability to launch sustained and repeated attacks on ascents of steep gradient. His best career results are winning the 2014 Giro d'Italia as well as a second place overall in the 2013 Tour de France. His brother Dayer Quintana is also a professional cyclist, and is a member of the Movistar Team.

Early life

Born in Cómbita,^[5] in the Boyacá Department of Colombia, Quintana comes from a very humble background, but his family still saved up to buy Quintana a second-hand mountain bike to make the 16 km (9.9 mi) journey to school.^[6] Quintana still resides in Cómbita.

Career

Early career

He started his career in the team "Boyacá es para Vivirla". In 2010, Quintana won the Tour de l'Avenir as part of the team "Café de Colombia - Colombia es Pasión", proving to be one of the great prospects for the future of Colombian cycling. ^[7]

Movistar (2012–present)

2012 season

In 2012, Quintana moved to Europe to join the Spanish Movistar Team. He won the overall classification in the Vuelta a Murcia. After, he took a prestigious victory at the Critérium du Dauphiné, when he sparked a counter-attack after a select group of riders including leader Bradley Wiggins reached the last escapee of the day. He held on to his solo lead in the descent leading to Morzine.^[8] After winning that stage, he later ended up winning the Route du Sud that year. Quintana made his Grand Tour debut at the Vuelta a Espana, where he was one of Alejandro Valverde's key climbing domestiques as the Spaniard finished second overall. Quintana finished 36th overall. In October, Quintana won the Giro dell'Emilia.

2013 season

Quintana at the 2013 Tour of Britain

In 2013, Quintana won stage 3 of the Volta a Catalunya, and the following month, he won the queen stage of the Tour of the Basque Country by sprinting to victory after the final climb in Eibar–Arrate, two seconds before a group of six fellow overall contenders.^[9] Quintana took the overall win in the final time trial by finishing second behind Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-Quick Step), gaining enough time over Team Sky's Sergio Henao to take the leader's jersey from him.^[10]

At the 2013 Tour de France, Quintana attacked on the Col de Pailheres during Stage 8 and became the first man to cross the highest pass that year. He was later overtaken, on the stage's penultimate climb, by race favorite Chris Froome. Quintana nonetheless took the lead of the young rider classification and received the award for that stage's most aggressive rider.^[11] On stage 15 to Mont Ventoux, Quintana again attacked early on and only the race leader Froome was able to match him, eventually dropping him in the final two kilometers of the climb after they had raced up much of it together.^[12] After stage 15, Quintana was 6th overall. Stage 18 for the first time including doing the famous and iconic Alp d'Huez climb twice. Quintana's 4th place finish moved him into a 3rd place on the podium position in the overall standings for the first time, in his first TDF. In stage 20, he didn't just defend his 3rd place podium position, he attacked Froome riding away from him in the last kilometer during the novel climb to Annecy-Semnoz to win the stage over Joaquin Rodriquez and Froome and moving securely into second place overall where he finished the Tour. He also won the Young Riders Jersey and the King of the Mountains competition. Finishing second overall in the General Classification was the best result for a Colombian or Latin-American rider in the Tour the France and the first Tour debutant to finish on the podium since Jan Ullrich in 1996. After the Tour, Quintana went on to win the Vuelta a Burgos where he won stage 5 of the race after dropping Vincenzo Nibali on the final climb.

2014 season

Quintana in the Maglio Rossa at the 2014 Giro d'Italia

Because of the high mountains included in the 2014 Giro d'Italia, Quintana decided to aim for the Giro and skip the Tour de France.^[13] His 2014 season started off with an early overall victory at the Tour de San Luis after winning the mountain top finish Stage 4. Quintana placed second overall behind Alberto Contador at Tirreno-Adriatico in March,^[14] and finished fifth in the Volta a Catalunya after picking up an illness between the races.^[15]

At the Giro, Quintana entered the race not in optimal condition mainly due to an illness he caught early in the season. Quintana's Movistar team began with 8th place in the opening team time trial in Belfast, 55 seconds down on winners Orica Greenedge, after rain during their effort.^[16] On Stage 6, Quintana was caught up behind a huge crash as the peloton approached the finishing climb of Montecassino, which saw him sit 2 minutes and 8 seconds behind leader Michael Matthews. After the individual time trial on Stage 12, Quintana was 6th overall, 3 minutes and 29 seconds behind new leader Rigoberto Uran.^[17] Quintana started to show strong form on stages 14 and 15, reducing the gap to 2'40". He would later reach his top form at the last week of the race.^[18] On Stage 16 in he claimed the leader's maglia rosa in controversial circumstances as some of his top rivals had mistakenly thought that the descent of the Stelvio was neutralized; riding through dense fog and low visibility, Quintana joined an attack with Pierre Rolland and Ryder Hesjedal, eventually winning the stage and gaining 4'11" on Uran. On stage 19, Quintana flew up the Monte Grappa, winning the mountain time trial by 17 seconds over Fabio Aru to extend his lead over Uran to 3 minutes and 7 seconds. He maintained his lead on Monte Zoncolan on Stage 20 and the final stage into Trieste. Quintana also won the white jersey for best young rider.^[19]

After the Giro, Quintana took a couple months off of racing. He returned to Europe in August aiming to win the Vuelta a Espana. Two weeks before the Vuelta, Quintana won the Vuelta a Burgos winning stage 3 and coming second in the final time trial gave him enough time over second placed Daniel Moreno. In the Vuelta, Quintana had the race lead coming in to Stage ten's ITT. However, he crashed badly after misjudging a bend and lost 4 minutes and the red jersey.^[20] He crashed again at the beginning of the next stage and withdrew from the race due to a broken collarbone.^[21]

2015 season

Quintana started his 2015 season at the Tour de San Luis.^[22] He finished third overall in the race.^[23] Quintana was originally scheduled to ride the Vuelta a Andalucía, but a crash at the Colombian national road race championships caused his withdrawal.^[24] His next race was therefore the Tirreno–Adriatico. Here he took his first win of the 2015 season on the summit finish at Terminillo, taking over the race lead as well. He won in a blizzard of snow.^[25] He would not relinquish the lead over the 10 kilometer final time trial and went on to win the Overall as well as the Young rider jersey.^[26] Quintana was selected by his team for two cobbled classics (the E3 Harelbeke and the Dwars door Vlaanderen) in order to prepare him for the cobblestones that had been scheduled to be part of the 2015 Tour de France.^[27]

Achievements

Grand Tour general classification results timeline:

Grand Tour	2012	2013	2014
Giro	—	—	1
Tour	—	2	—
Vuelta	36	—	WD

WD = Withdrew; In Progress = IP

Other major stage races

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Nairo Quintana.

• Nairo Quintana profile at Cycling Archives