Movistar have confirmed their three top leaders` Grand Tour program for 2019, with Nairo Quintana and Mikel Landa heading to the Tour de France whilst World Champion Alejandro Valverde will be present at the Giro d`Italia and Vuelta a Espaņa. Speaking at the Movistar Team launch in Madrid on Tuesday morning, longstanding general manager Eusebio Unzue made it clear there would be no repeat of the team`s unsuccessful line-up of their three best-known racers at the Tour de France in 2019. Instead, Valverde heads back to the Giro d`Italia, where he finished on the podium in 2016, and next May he and Landa will be the Spanish squad`s contenders. Landa will then move onto the Tour de France, whilst Quintana and Valverde, both former winners of the Vuelta a Espaņa, will once again be present in Spain`s Grand Tour next August.ADVERTISEMENT `The objective,` Unzue told reporters, `is to win a Grand Tour,` - a mission last achieved by Movistar with Nairo Quintana in the 2016 Vuelta a Espaņa. He also recognised that the wins by young Movistar riders Richard Carapaz and Marc Soler in the Giro d`Italia and Paris-Nice `boded well for the future,` and highlighted the team`s 27 wins, but said that both Landa and Quintana had been unlucky in the Grand Tours in 2018, too. Unzue also highlighted Movistar women`s team and their promising competitive debut last season. `Quintana and Landa did not fulfil expectations last season, but all that will change,` Unzue said according to Spanish news agency EFE.
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