Until the Vuelta a San Juan in Argentina the echoes of the ordeal that Nairo Quintana, 32, lives through. The former passenger of the ‘yellow dream’ with which Movistar baptized a hope, that of winning the Tour again after the glorious years of Perico Delgado and Miguel Induráin, is more outside than inside cycling, according to what they say in Colombia.
As always, doping and its shadows, its endless tentacles, spoil everything. Nairo doesn’t have anyone who loves him, he can’t find a team, after a adverse outcome of tramadol in the last Tour, where he finished sixth.
Tramadol is a substance commonly used in the population intended to relieve pain and allowed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) code, and it is speculated that it will be banned in the futureprobably in 2024. It is not allowed in cycling during races.
Quintana lost his sixth place in the Tour, his UCI points and, above all, the credit that any suspicious case involves. He has no legal process open and the TAS did not agree with him in his appeal. He said goodbye to Arkea, his last team where he had once again found brilliant sensations, those that made him desafiar a Chris Froome for many summers.
The Colombian has encountered another reality, that of silent cycling that closes its eyes and does not want trouble. A good part of the professional teams belong to the so-called ‘Movement for a credible cycling’ (MMCC), promoted by the French.
These are acronyms that usually work for the gallery, but history shows that when there is a positive case, an investigation or a dark episode, everyone washes their hands and the runner pays the consequences.
Nairo, who was detected tramadol in an analysis, is now the paymaster of a system that tends more to hypocrisy than to the effective materialization of a common desire to eliminate doping from cycling.
Johann Bruyneel, who belonged to the system and was the director of Lance Armstrong, a doped winner of seven Tours, now speaks for himself, like a child or a drunk, without ties. «I know firsthand that the organization of the Tour, ASO, has pressured teams interested in Nairo Quintana so that they do not hire him. Those teams need an invite to run it, so the decision is obvious. If they hire Quintana, they don’t come to the Tour,” he said on his podcast ‘La Movida’.
The season has started and, indeed, nobody wants to hire Nairo Quintana, a cyclist who has reached three podiums in the Tour (2nd in 2013 and 2015, 3rd in 2016) with Movistar and his yellow dream, and who has won the Giro d’Italia (2014) and the Tour of Spain (2016).
According to the Colombian website ‘Ciclismo en grande’, Nairo will offer a press conference this Wednesday in which he will announce his plan for the future. The information explains that his decision will be to hang up the bicycle after fourteen years as a professional.
