Quintana: “The dream is not over and there are many years to come”
Nairo Quintana (Movistar) finished 28 seconds behind Froome after being dropped with just under 1.5km to go in stage 17 at the Tour de France and now lies 3min 27sec down on Chris Froome (Sky) in the general classification.
The expected attacks from Quintana on 2016 Tour de France race leader Chris Froome largely failed to materialise during stage 17 of the race in the Swiss Alps and the Colombian was dropped even by Adam Yates (Orica-BikeExchange), Romain Bardet (AG2R) and Louis Meintjes (Lampre-Merida).
“There are lots of years left,” said Quintana after the stage. “I’m 26 and the guys ahead of me are much older and have much more experience. The dream is not over and there are many years to come, many years to keep trying.”
“Anything can happen before Paris. It wasn’t a great day for me. I was hoping to do better because I had good sensations but at the end there my body didn’t feel good,” said Quintana.
“I did the best I could today. I hope that in the upcoming stages my body can react in a good way, as it has in recent years.”
“I feel ok. I think it was a bad day. I hope to recover, and hope that my body returns to its natural state, to be as it always has been in all the other races I’ve done this year.”
