Nope, Cadel Evans in yellow in Paris!

Think Movistar is still happy with their decision to make Quintana do the Giro instead of the Tour?

Froom and Contador are out and Valverde can't hang on the climbs with the guys in 3rd-6th.

Sure Quintana won the Giro, but it very well may have been at the expense of his first Tour win.

Nope. I think Quintana would have taken it especially the way this has played out.

I am not a huge pr tour follower, but watch all the big races. I've seen Valverde for years, but never really viewed him as having the skills to be a top podium guy. I mean he's always up there somewhere, but never seems as if he's won much (and I could just not know about a lot of his race results). Quintana on the other hand was an immediate threat last year.

Shoulda coulda woulda.

If Froome hadn't crashed out and Contador hadn't crashed out, Nibali wouldn't be leading the Tour. Quintana would not have been able to hang with Nibali on the cobbles and would not have picked up much time in the mountains on tired legs from the Giro.

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Rick, "Retired" hobbyist athlete
Trying to come back slowly from acute A-Fib

I'm not saying he should have done both.

I was disappointed in their decision to not let him do the tour. You got 2nd last year? Congrats, now go do a different race this year so Valverde can have a chance.

The way this year's Tour played out only magnifies the disappointment.

You do realize that it's not the same race year after year.

The tour was less suited to Quintana this year with the cobbles and the long TT plus slightly less challenging climbs with no Alpe d'Huez or Mont Ventoux. The Giro, especially this year with the Zoncolan and an uphill TT plus all of the other climbs almost all of which are steeper than the tour climbs, was much more suited to him which is proven by his win. I doubt he'd have won the Tour even if it was just him vs. Nibali.

Yeah, I think they are. Their stated goal was to get Valverde on the podium, and it is still a real possibility. Valverde is a decent rider against the clock and could pull back the 2" he is down.

Movistar knew he wasn't gonna win the race. The podium goal (and sole Tour leadership) was a payback for his years of service to the team.

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he was pretty sick at the start of the Giro and i'm guessing he's pretty happy NOT doing france this year between sickness and Giro recovery. he's a young studly climber. he's gearing up for france for next year IIRC.

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You might be right (especially re: cobbles), but they had dual TTs last year consisting of more kms (including one relatively pan flat). Would have been a hard ask for him win with the field everyone was expecting (vs. a relatively soft Giro field), but I still think Valverde's influence and desire to do the Tour is easily the biggest thing holding Quintana back from competing in the TDF (proven last year when Quintana was burned on the very first major GC climb of last year's Tour).