One of the strangest episodes of the whole of stage 14 in this year´s Tour de France was the sight of Movistar driving at the front of the bunch on the Tourmalet, only for their leader, Nairo Quintana, to wind up dropped, at least partly as a result of their own pace. Movistar had begun their hard, and ultimately self-destructive, work on the Col du Soulor, and their domestiques, spearheaded by Andrey Amador and Marc Soler, continued to power away on the lower slopes of the Tourmalet. However, with 10 kilometres to go, Quintana suddenly begun to swing across the back part of the peloton, and although he managed to stay in contention for another kilometre or so, after that he suddenly cracked for good.ADVERTISEMENT As the Movistar domestiques suddenly eased up, with Soler being sent back to support Quintana whilst Valverde and Landa remained in the leader´s group, the Colombian finally ended by losing more than three minutes. Overall, he has slumped from eighth to 14th, and with it has gone any hope of taking yellow this year. Quintana himself said that the team should now work for Alejandro Valverde and Mikel Landa. The key question on stage 14, however, was more how it was possible that Movistar should lay down so much groundwork for Quintana when he was not on a good day. According to Movistar head manager Eusebio Unzué, the answer was that Quintana failed to inform them he was not in the best of places beforehand.
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