The China Mail - '10 out of 10' Quintana reminisces over dream Vuelta win

The Vuelta is usually viewed as the least prestigious of the three Grand Tours but to claim the coveted red jersey, Quintana had to beat Tour de France winners in Chris Froome and Alberto Contador.

"It was clearly far more than what we dreamed of, what we thought of," said Quintana, 36, who won 53 races -- the most by a Colombian -- during his 17-year career.

Amongst those were three Tour stages, as many again at the Giro and two more at the Vuelta.

He also won important week-long stage races such as Tirreno-Adriatico, twice, and the tours of the Basque Country and Romandy.

For many years, he was the benchmark for a new generation of talented Colombian, and later also Latin American, cyclists known for their diminutive stature and explosive climbing ability.

His 2014 Giro victory was the greatest achievement for a South American cyclist until Egan Bernal, who was just 22 at the time, claimed a shock victory at the 2019 Tour, making him the Grand Boucle's youngest winner in more than a century, until Tadej Pogacar beat that the following year.

- Racing Pogacar a 'pleasure' -

Speaking to AFP following a public discussion in his honour in the coastal city of Cartagena last week, Quintana said he rated his career as a "10 out of 10".

He ended it last week at the Giro dell'Emilia, when fellow riders performed a guard of honour for the amiable Movistar rider, who is known as the Condor of the Andes.

He said he was "happy" despite never having won the Tour.

He was second to Chris Froome in 2013, on his debut, and 2015, and third in 2016. He won the Best Young Rider's white jersey twice and the King of the Mountains jersey once.

Quintana would also finish in the top 10 three times more but was stripped of his sixth-placed finish in 2022 after he was found to have taken a banned pain relief medication -- although he did not serve a ban as tramadol use contravened UCI medical rules but was not outlawed by WADA at that time.

By then, four-time Tour winner Froome was a shadow of his former self, but Pogacar had begun his era of near-total domination.

The five-time Tour winner is the "greatest in the present and in history", said Quintana.

"I had the pleasure of racing against him, beating him sometimes and losing other times," he added.

"He is a cyclist with great ability who is making the most of it."

Another rider who has impressed Quintana is Pogacar's Mexican team-mate at UAE Emirates-XRG, Isaac Del Toro, who finished third at the Tour in July.

"He arrived just a short time ago and already has around 36 victories," Quintana said of the 22-year-old.

"He will surely beat what many of us (Latin Americans) achieved."

D.Wang--ThChM