After a mostly quiet spring, Carlos Betancur showed off a strong vein of form at June`s Hammer Series before putting in an impressive ride at the Tour de France, finishing inside the top 20 overall despite riding in support of Nairo Quintana for most of the race. Movistar have since named Betancur in their starting nine for the Vuelta a España, where he and the rest of the squad will have a rare opportunity. With Quintana skipping the event after riding both the Giro d`Italia and the Tour this season and Alejandro Valverde out for the year following his crash in the Tour prologue, Movistar have plenty of talent in their line-up but no obvious single leader for their home Grand Tour. Reinvigorated by his performances the past two months after a long stretch without any big results, Betancur is in as good a position as ever to seize the opportunity. `I`d lost a bit of confidence but during the Tour I think I recovered a lot of that,` Betancur told Cyclingnews this week during a stint of altitude training. `And now for the Vuelta, I`m going to give it the max. I`m going with high hopes. I`ve prepared well. If I arrive at a high level or not, we`ll see, but I want to do a great Vuelta.`ADVERTISEMENT The highs and lows the enigmatic 27-year-old has ridden through during his career have been well-documented. After a promising start as an amateur he seemed to have arrived in a big way with AG2R La Mondiale in 2013, winning the Giro`s young rider`s jersey. But since starting 2014 in blistering form with two stage wins and the overall title at Paris-Nice, Betancur has scored nary a single WorldTour victory, going through long stretches without delivering encouraging results or even racing altogether, often disappearing from the public eye at home in Colombia for months at a time and dealing with fluctuations in body weight. He left AG2R for Movistar in 2016 and quickly showed his potential with stage wins at the Vuelta a Castilla y Leon and Vuelta Asturias before reg ...
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