Nairo Quintana intends to do whatever it takes to prove her innocence. For this reason, he decided to give up his start in Vuelta a Espana.
Until a few days ago, Nairo Quintana was pretty sure he would go to Spain to try to get another good Grand Tour performance. A few weeks after taking the 6th place in The Tour de France was in the lineup for the Vuelta a Espana. Unfortunately, the situation changed dramatically on Wednesday. The Colombian disappeared from the Grand Loop’s overall standings due to a detection in his body tramadol.
As tramadol is not banned by WADA, but only by the UCI, and Quintana was caught on it for the first time, he was only excluded from the Big Loop. So he could compete in Vuelta a Espana, but as it turns out, he did not take advantage of this opportunity.
– I hereby announce that I will not appear at the Vuelta a Espana in order to be able to present my arguments before the Court of Arbitration (CAS). I will return to racing at the end of the season
– we read in a statement published by the Colombian.
So far, his band – Arkea Samsic has not commented on the announcement, so we do not know who will replace him in the line-up for the last of the great tours.