Management

MOVISTAR TEAM (MOV) - ESP

The Movistar team is arguably the best Spanish UCI WorldTour team and has new hopes and ambitions for 2013.

Alejandro Valverde's return to racing after a doping ban lifted the team's ambitions and results, with the Spaniard finishing a deserved second overall in the Vuelta Espana. Movistar also won the opening team time trial, while Rui Costa showed his stage race talent by winning the Tour de Suisse.

Movistar made little impact in the one-day classics but Francisco Ventoso gave the team its second consecutive Spanish national road race title and Colombia's Nairo Quintana took six classy wins and showed he has huge potential in the mountains.

Marzio Bruseghin, Vasil Kiryienka, Ignas Konovalovas, David Garcia and Branislau Samoilau have all left the team but new signings for 2013 include talented British time trialist Alex Dowsett, Italian stage race prodigy Eros Capecchi and veteran mountain domestique Sylvester Szmyd of Poland.

Former Italian National Champion Giovanni Visconti, 2011 Vuelta winner Juan Jose Cobo and Russia's Vladimir Karpets all remain, providing a backbone of experience and results along with Ventoso, sprinter Jose Rojas, Angel Madrazo and highly respected veteran Pablo Lastras.

“We've kept the base, the block that gave us such great success during the last two seasons. We expect to equal the results obtained these past two years and with a solid leader like Alejandro, you have to think about places on the Grand Tour podiums and that's what we'll take a shot at,” team manager Eusebio Unzue said.