• Pogacar: Matxin's latest find
  • Marc Soler. And his tremendous anger at having to stop to help Nairo Quintana
  • Classification: This is the general of the Tour

The first rest day of La Vuelta was especially active in the Movistar. On the one hand, Nairo Quintana , leader of the race, confirmed that he will leave the team at the end of the season because he feels he has "completed a cycle" and will sign for the French Arkea-Samsic for a period of three years. On the other, Richard Carapaz (winner of the last Tour of Italy) confirmed his transfer to the powerful Ineos with a three-season contract. And all this after the indisputable malaise of Marc Soler being forced to sacrifice his victory options in Andorra for the benefit of Quintana. The Catalan asked for forgiveness, but his team manager, Pablo Lastras , pulled him by the ears.

"It's good to have his character, but Marc has to start listening and maturing. If we want to become a leader he has to go through gregarious. If not, put on a tutorial and see what Miguel did for Perico and then Perico for Miguel. These kids lack cycling memory, "the coach told Marca .

After the boss's scolding, the runner regretted the manners displayed in the final leg of Sunday's stage. "We've talked about it. I want to apologize to Movistar, Nairo and the whole team. It won't happen again, it was the heat of seeing me there at the time. We've come to win with Nairo or Valverde and we knew it from the beginning I had never seen myself in such a situation and, when you see yourself, a lot of things happen to you. When you think about it cold, everything changes. I apologize, "explained the Catalan.

To defend the red

Quintana said he did not meet Marc Soler to discuss what happened in Andorra. "We haven't talked any of that with Marc, we talked about the great work of the team all day, with runners ahead, and we did what we had to do. He will have his reasons, but we keep going forward and thinking about continuing to work well, for a gesture we are not going to make a great chaos ", relativized the Colombian.

The controversy of the telephone team encouraged a day of rest in which Nairo monopolized prominence. Despite ratifying his departure from Movistar, the Colombian said that he will focus on defending the red jersey of the first classified of the Vuelta, although he assumed that it will be difficult to retain him on Tuesday's time trial in Pau, where Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) is favorite and is only six seconds overall.

After the chrono, the goal of the Colombian is to go in block to fight for the final victory in Madrid. "What matters is the team as such, who is better will help the other and so we see, depending on who has better legs," he said regarding the leadership shared with Valverde.

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