Nationality: Colombian
Date of birth: February 4, 1990
Height: 167cm
Weight: 57kg
Team: Movistar
Previous teams: Boyacá Es Para Vivirla (2009); Colombia Es Pasion (2010-11)
Twitter: @NairoQuinCo

Nairo Quintana currently rides for team Movistar and is one of cycling’s foremost climbers.

Nairo Quintana: 2018 season

Quintana has had a quieter start to the 2018 season, perhaps taking notes from last year’s results.

He showed he had good legs at the Tour de Suisse, a typical warm up race for his target: the Tour de France.

He finished third overall, but showed flashes of building form with a long range attack on the Queen stage of the Swiss race.

The first two weeks of the 2018 Tour de France haven’t been hugely successful for Quintana –  though he is still hanging on to a top 10 position on the GC.

Nairo Quintana: 2017 season

Setting himself big goals for the 2017 season, Quintana targeted both the Giro and the Tour de France – if he had succeeded in winning both, he’d have been the  first rider to do so since Marco Pantani in 1998.

The Columbian rider moved into the pink at the end of stage nine of the 2017 Giro d’Italia, after taking a solo win atop of the Blockhaus climb. However, he eventually finished second to Tom Dumoulin.

His second goal – the Tour de France – started with his least favourite discipline: a time trial. Whilst Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) took the win, Chris Froome (Team Sky) came in 6th, 12 seconds back and Quintana was a further 36 seconds down in 53rd.

Treacherous conditions caused by heavy rain also saw Quintana’s right hand man, Alejandro Valverde, crash out of the race which will be a disappointment for the team. Sprint finishes on stages two, three and four meant he maintained a 48 second deficit going into the fifth day.

The summit finish on the fifth stage spelt trouble for Quintana. When Fabio Aru attacked, eventually taking the win, Froome went after him – splitting the GC group. Quintana didn’t stay with the chasers, losing more time on GC. On stage nine and stage 12, he lost further time – dropping back the prime GC contenders, eventually sitting over four minutes back.

However, he pulled back half of the deficit by joining a break group on stage 13, reducing his time gap to 2-07.

On the following stages Quintana found himself languishing behind everyone and when he tried to attack was only left behind by his fellow attackers. Stage 18 saw an ill Fabio Aru over take him on the road and compounded what has been a very poor Tour for the Colombian, who finished the race in Paris well out of the top ten on GC.

Nairo Quintana: career to date

Quintana has rapidly established himself as a Grand Tour specialist, having taken the overall victory at the 2014 Giro d’Italia and 2016 Vuelta a España.

With two second place finishes at the Tour de France in 2013 and 2015, and a third place in 2016, the Colombian is widely expected to occupy the top podium step in Paris in the coming years.

Quintana was born in Boyaca, Colombia, in February 1990 with his cycling background differing from the norm.

Quintana first rode a bike as a school boy when his father invested in a second-hand mountain bike, which he used to get to his school that was located nine miles away.

The mountainous route to school had a profound impact on the young Colombian who became fascinated with the sport, later riding competitively and paying the race fees after he had won.

Aged 19, Quintana was rewarded with his first professional contract as he raced for the government-funded Boyacá Es Para Vivirla.

His best result of his season was a tenth-placed finish on stage six of the Giro Ciclistico della Valle d’Aosta Mont Blanc

In 2010 Colombia Es Pasion came calling and Quintana signed a two-year deal, where he raced with his fellow countryman and later-to-be WorldTour rider Sergio Henao.

Quintana competed in a mixture of under-23 and elite races throughout his first season with Es Pasion (now named 4-72) before he won the Tour de l’Avenir general classification.

L’Avenir is translated into “Tour of the Future” and Quintana’s victory by 1-44 portrayed his enormous talent. Two stage wins on the sixth day and the final day’s individual time trial propelled Quintana to the summit of the GC.

Quintana could not defend his title in 2011 Tour de l’Avenir, his best placing being eighth on the second stage as he finished in 21st position overall.

But he did claim the Volta a Catalunya mountains classification by five points from Alberto Contador, another indication of his climbing prowess.

Nairo Quintana on stage five of the 2012 Dauphine-Libere

Spanish team Movistar then decided to snap up the flourishing 5-foot 5-inch ace for the 2012 season and he got off to a successful start by winning the two-day Vuelta a Murcia GC.

He followed that up with second place at the Vuelta a la Comunidad de Madrid and then won arguably his biggest race up until that point by winning stage 6 of the 2012 Critérium du Dauphiné after an intrepid attack.

Despite a GC victory on the Route du Sud – la Dépêche du Midi, Quintana was overlooked for Movistar’s Tour de France team. He did, though, make his Grand Tour debut at the Vuelta a España and was part of the Movistar team that won the opening day’s team time trial.

Third place in the 2013 Paris-Nice TT was his first result of a year that saw the rider become a household name.

A stage win at the Volta a Cataluyna earned him a spot on the GC podium in third before he won the GC at the Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco thanks to a stage victory and second in the TT.

At the 2013 Tour de France Quintana was a revelation, jostling with the leading contenders on the mountain stages and forcing eventual winner Chris Froome into an occasional game of cat and mouse on the Alpine and Pyrenees slopes.

He came second behind Froome on Mont Ventoux and fourth on stage 18 which involved two ascents of Alpe d’Huez. Each time Quintana conveyed a neutral, pain-free face as he climbed up the GC.

He tucked himself into an aerodynamic stance on stage 17 of a hilly TT, crossing the line in sixth place to strengthen his chances of being on the podium.

He then made sure of second place on the GC, the polka-dot jersey and the young riders jersey after storming away from Froome and Joaquim Rodriguez on the climb into Semnoz on stage 20 to claim the stage win he coveted.

Nairo Quintana on stage 15 of the 2016 Vuelta a España

In August 2013 Movistar extended Quintana’s contract for a further two seasons and he repaid them with his first Grand Tour victory in the 2014 Giro d’Italia, winning two stages along the way, including the snowy mountain day on stage 16 which took in the Stelvio Pass.

Quintana continued to go from strength to strength, and despite a slightly less lucrative year in 2015, he still took overall victory at the prestigious one-week race Tirreno-Adriatico as well another second place finish at the Tour, running Froome close in the final week with an impressive attacking display on the penultimate stage to Alpe d’Huez.

2016 has seen Quintana in imperious form, claiming overall wins at the Volta a Ciclista a Catalunya and the Tour de Romandie. Although he faltered at the Tour de France to finish third behind Chris Froome, he bounced back to take a convincing victory in the Vuelta a España, with Froome in second.

Nairo Quintana’s results

2016
Volta Ciclista a Catalunya; overall
Tour de Romandie; stage two
Tour de Romandie; overall
Route du Sud; stage 2b
Route du Sud; overall
Vuelta a España; stage 10
Vuelta a España; overall

2015
Tirreno Adriatico; stage five
Tirreno Adriatico; overall
Tour de France; second overall
Tour de France; youth classification

2014
Tour de San Luis; stage four
Giro d’Italia; stage 16
Giro d’Italia; stage 19 ITT
Giro d’Italia; overall
Giro d’Italia; youth classification
Vuelta a Burgos; stage three

2013
Tour de France: second overall
Tour de France: mountains classification
Tour de France: young riders classification
Tour de France: stage 20
Volta a Cataluyna: stage three
Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco: overall
Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco: stage four
Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco: points classification

2012
Vuelta a Marcia: overall
Vuelta a Marcia: stage 1
Route du Sud – la Dépêche du Midi: overall
Criterium du Dauphine: stage six
Vuelta a Espana: stage one (team time trial)
Giro dell’Emilia: overall

2011
Volta a Catalunya: mountains classification

2010
Tour de l’Avenir: overall
Tour de l’Avenir: stage 6
Tour de l’Avenir: stage 7 (TT)