Nairo Quintana has confirmed he will ride the Colombian national championships on Sunday, competing as a privateer with the Boyacá region of Colombian thanks to a loophole in the Colombian Federation rules.
Quintana is still without a team for 2023 after testing positive for banned painkiller Tramadol at last year’s Tour de France but is refusing to end his career.
Although not technically a doping offence, tramadol is banned under the UCI’s medical rules and Quintana was let go by his Arkéa-Samsic team.
He has still to find a new team for 2023 but has dismissed rumours of retirement, announcing his determination to race on during an emotional speech in Bogota last week.
“I’m going to keep battling to continue – to continue on the bike until my body and mind give way,” he said.
“I want to return to competition, pin a number on, feel the pain in the legs but also the satisfaction of victory and of giving the best of myself until the line. I want this, I need this, because competition is a part of me.”
The 32-year-old former Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España winner last raced at the World Championships in Australia in September. His last race in Arkéa-Samsic colours was the Tour de France.
He has spent the winter at home in Colombia and confirmed he will ride the national championships in an Instagram video as he showed off a new BMC race bike.
The men’s road race covers 10 laps of a hilly circuit around Bucaramanga for a total of 237 km of racing. The women’s national championships will be held on the same circuit on Saturday.
Many of Colombia’s best-known professional riders will fight for the title national title including recent Vuelta a San Juan winner Miguel Angel López, Sergio Higuita (Bora-Hansgrohe), Rigoberto Urán and Esteban Chaves (EF Education-Easypost), Daniel Martínez (Ineos Grenadiers) and also Egan Bernal, if he recovers quickly from the knee injury that forced him to quit the Vuelta a San Juan.
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