Team Movistar have announced, in light of confirmation that Quintana intends on doing a Giro-Tour double this year, the early season race programmes for both he and Movistar co-leader Alejandro Valverde.
Both riders will begin their respective campaigns at the Mallorca Challenge at the end of January, but from there on in it's a pretty split programme for the duo, with Quintana's big early season objective the Giro d'Italia and Valverde's the Ardennes Classics.
Quintana's schedule is a lot thinner, understandably if he's going to be targetting the Tour as well, with the biggest race in the run-up to the Giro being Tirreno-Adriatico after the Abu Dhabi Tour.
Meanwhile Valverde's taste for early season stage races continues at Vuelta Andalucia (of which he's won four out of the last five editions), Paris-Nice, Volta a Catalunya and Pais Vasco, before taking on the triple header of Ardennes Classics in April.
A training crash suffered recently would appear not to have impacted his early season race schedule.
Valverde has a long history of successes in the Ardennes, having won Liege three times (once post-ban), and Fleche Wallone four times (three post-ban), but has previously only managed a few second places at the Amstel Gold Race.
Quintana won the Giro in 2014, and with a mountainous route on the cards for 2016 he will surely be a contender for the Maglia Rosa this year as well.
