Tour de France - Nairo Quintana: I feel like we’ve got a decent chance
Jul 16 2019 09:36 pm CET
Photo of Nairo Quintana
Movistar's Nairo Quintana sits in the eighth position of the General Classification of the Tour de France after being in the front group at the tenth stage of the race.
The leader of Movistar managed to stay at the front group after the peloton broke in pieces due to crosswinds and the speed set by teams like Deceuninck-Quick-Step and Ineos. Just before the first rest day, the Colombian climbed six positions in the General Classification from the 14th to the eighth place.
"I’d say we’re almost lucky to reach this far in the Tour having lost arguably the smallest margin in the last few years against our biggest rivals," said Quintana in the press meeting of the rest day. "I feel like we’ve got a decent chance. It won’t be easy, yet we’re in good condition and we’ll try to play our cards intelligently to make up time, and at the time trial, do our best to lose as little time as possible.
"I think I’m well prepared for the TT, I’m ready to go into it. My body feels right at the moment. We know we will be losing time since I’m not a specialist compared to the others. I’ll concede some time, and I just hope it won’t be too much."
Despite the time lost of Mikel Landa at the tenth stage of the French grand tour, the team is ready to face the mountain stages that are coming. "We’re still eleven stages away from Paris, there’s so much left in this race," Quintana explained. "There are mountain stages which could suit us really well. The work by our team-mates throughout this race has been really, really good, most especially yesterday, when we were all at the front before Mikel’s crash.
"The team is in good condition, and after the TT we will seek a strategy to try and get back to the top. There are mountains which suit us well and, together with Alejandro, who is always there supporting us, and Mikel, I think we can do well together and achieve our goal for this race. With all due to respect to Alaphilippe as race leader – we don’t really know how far he will reach in yellow – the team carrying all responsibility at this moment is Ineos, and we must plan our strategies considering how they will race and tackle the mountain stages. They had two cards to play and they still keep Thomas and Egan in a perfect position."
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