The Tour de France and the Vuelt a Espana are Nairo Quintana's main objectives for 2015. The Colombian Movistar rider and the Tour of Spain, then, are the main objectives of Nairo Quintana next season. The Colombian Movistar Team rider sees it as realistic to do all three grand tours as proposed by Oleg Tinkov but admits that it is a different challenge to go there to win all of them.
Nairo Quintana was presented as a friend of Unicef Colombia at a conference in Bogota where he elaborated on his main goals for the coming season after the won the Giro d'Italia and abandoned the Vuelta a Espana with a broken shoulder.
"Next year the main objective is the Tour and later in the year the Vuelta a Espana, " he said. Until the first Movistar training camp in mid-November he doesn't know his schedule exactly and he will have to share the leadership in the three grand tours with Alejandro Valverde. "We do no know if we will both go to the Tour and the Vuelta a Espana or if he does the Giro and the Vuelta and I do the Tour and the Vuelta. The only thing we know is that we will both do the Vuelta," he added.
Quintana even announced a possible schedule: Tour de San Luis, Paris Nice, Volta a Catalunya, Tour of the Basque Country, Tour de Suisse, Tour de France, Vuelta a Burgos and Vuelta a Espana. He said he will approach the 2015 season "quietly, because we are a bit tired. We want to win more but we have to be aware that we have great rivals."
Regarding the challenge launched by Oleg Tinkov that Contador, Nibali, Froome and Quintana all do the Giro, Tour and Vuelta in the same year, he refuses to commit himself to doing all three races.
"Actually, there is very little chance that all four will be present. For me it would be no problem. It would be possible to do them but I would say that it is impossible to win them. You can do a good performance though. We have to wait to see what the team decides and what the others riders do," he said.
Furthermore, he underlined the fact that Valverde has won the WorldTour and praised his teammate.
"Alejandro has shown why he is first in the standings. He is a rider who may have missed out on the win in many races but he is always in the top 10, from January to November, He is 34 years old but he is very versatile and creates plenty of excitement," he said.
With his shoulder recovery now in its final phase, he believes that his 2014 was remarkable, with victories in the Giro d'Italia, the Tour de San Luis and the Vuelta a Burgos, second in Tirreno-Adriatico and fifth in the Volta a Catlaunya.
"Today I am not 100% recovered but I know I will be good and in good condition. I make a very good balance. Due to my crash in the Vuelta a Espana, it wasn't great but it was definitely good," he said.
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