Nairo Quintana cannot find calm. Despite having lived with revelry this weekend his Gran Fondo de México event, the cyclist from Boyacá is still without a team and marked by the shadow of the tramadol scandal.
Although there is less and less time to know the decision of the Arbitration Court of Sport (TAS, for its acronym in French) on the appeal that Quintana made after being sanctioned by the International Cycling Union, after the plot substance was found in two of his blood samples during the last Tour de France, the panorama does not stop being filled with new details.
A few days ago, Yvon Ledanois, who served as Arkea’s sports director, said he felt “disappointed” by what happened with Quintana.
Now the turn to dispatch is for the general manager of the team, Emmanuel Hubert, who without mincing words says: “Nairo’s page is already past”.
(You can read: Nairo Quintana: the arguments he would have to save himself from the sanction in the TAS).
‘Now it’s your problem’
“The news of Nairo was a huge blow to the head. The day the announcement was made, I found a fait accompli. I asked for an explanation. I was very upset”, was the first thing Hubert said to the French media ‘Letelegramme’, about the Quintana case.
Later, he added: “Quintana assured that he had not ingested anything. Since then he has defended himself before the TAS. He is entitled to the presumption of innocence. Now that’s his problem. We are no longer contractually bound. Quintana’s page is already past”.
In the end, questioned by the journalist Philippe Prizer, who alluded to the visit made by the French gendarmerie in 2020 to a room where Quintana was together with other Colombian runners to ask “Do you regret hiring him?”Hubert said:
“One simply draws lessons. To exist at a very high level, you have to have names. We cannot deny what we have done.”.
(Keep reading: Piqué shows his face: unexpected reaction to the release of ‘Monotonia’, by Shakira).
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