The Colombian Nairo Quintana assured this Saturday that he wants to be among the favorites to win the road competition in the National Championship this Sunday that was disputed in the city of Bucaramanga, although he confessed that his condition was not the best.
“Being the champion is important, it is also an achievement that I have never experienced (in that competition) and I have prepared for different occasions.Quintana said in a press conference in the Colombian city.
However, he hopes to “be close to the favorites” when he competes with routers as strong as Miguel Ángel ‘Supermán’ López (Team Medellín), Sergio Higuita (Bora), Daniel Felipe Martínez (Ineos); Diego Camargo and Esteban Chaves, from EF Education-Easypost; Harold Tejada, from Astana; Iván Ramiro Sosa and Einer Rubio, from Movistar, and Jesús Peña, from Greenedge Cycling.
It’s going to be a “it’s like nothing but it’s going to be hard” circuit. where there will be “natural competition without many attacks”, with a fast roll.
And he admitted to the press: “My condition is not good, what I am going through now. Only God knows when the time is and we will go quietly.”
Quintana, who confirmed last week that he will not retire from cycling, is waiting for a team to continue competing in the three most important races in the world, the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia or the Tour of Spain.
“Given the events of the last few months, where the rare environment in which I have been formed is undeniable and the inexplicable wall raised between the possibilities of competing and my desire to continue doing so, I do not give up and continues towards Sige,” said the Colombian climber, now 33 years old.
Now he assured that his future “may not be possible to run here in Colombia”, but nothing has been decided yet, after his disqualification last year from the Tour de France after he tested positive for the use of tramadol, a painkiller banned by the International Cycling Union (UCI) to protect the health and safety of cyclists but that listed as a dopant.
Source: La Verdad
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