A renovated Movistar Team goes for everything in 2018

The signing of Mikel Landa and the creation of the women’s team, biggest news for the upcoming season

• Mikel Landa, the Spanish cyclist of the moment, is the newest addition to a team of 25 sprinters. Together with the newly healthy Alejandro Valverde, and Colombian cyclist Nairo Quintana, Landa will lead the Telefónica team in major races
• The innovative proposal for 2018 is the creation of the World Tour women’s team with a squad of 10 cyclists who will have available the same resources as the men’s team in order to face a demanding international schedule
• Together with big data, Telefónica will incorporate Internet of Things technologies and unified communications to keep placing Movistar Team at the technological forefront

Madrid, 14 December 2017.– 35 cyclists will make up the squads for the two Movistar Teams (men’s and women’s) that Telefónica presented today at a crowded event in the Auditorium of the Main Building in Distrito Telefónica. Lead by Nairo Quintana, Alejandro Valverde –happily recovered from his fall in the past Tour– and Mikel Landa, the face of hope for the Spanish peloton and the most high-profile signing for the coming season, the 25 sprinters from the men’s squad have joined the 10 additions to the new women’s team that Movistar will launch in 2018.

Both teams will share the same technical means and will wear updated kits made for the Eusebio Unzue-led team for the next season, with a light blue maillot that matches Movistar’s new image, and contrasts with the traditional darker hue of the culotte. Mixed reality (augmented and virtual) was implemented throughout the presentation to reveal the new Canyon bicycle that both the women’s and men’s team cyclists will use throughout competition.

In its eighth season with the support of Telefónica, the team, 4-time best team in the world in the past 5 years, will seek a Tour de France win to close the circle of victories with the three major races following wins from Nairo Quintana in the Giro de Italia (2014) and the Vuelta a España (2016).

Carlos López Blanco, Director of Public Affairs and Regulation of Telefonica, assessed expectations for 2018: “We’re starting the 2018 season with a lot of hope and excitement. The team has put in extra effort in its aspiration to win all the races it will compete in, and we’re embarking on a very exciting project with the creation of the first Spanish women’s team in the World Tour. In addition, we will continue our actions that support public, mainstream cycling, including the RodamosJuntos campaign and the use of the Movistar team as a success case in the application of new technologies within sport”.

In addition to the use of big data from last year, Telefónica will incorporate Internet of Things (IoT) technologies for real-time monitoring during trainings. It will do so via the use of a tracker, a small device that is added to every bicycle, helmet or maillot with the aim of monitoring in real-time the team cyclists’ training rides with the safety benefits that this entails. This technology use is topped off with fleet management for the vehicles that accompany the Movistar Team (8 cars, 2 lorries, 2 buses) to provide monitoring of driving hours, routes or potentially necessary check-ups. All the information will be stored in the Telefónica cloud servers.

The team will also implement unified cloud communications solutions, enabling the entire technical team, sprints, suppliers and sponsors to collaborate from any device, with the possibility to access any data both immediately and securely.

The Movistar Team continues to be a point of reference in the digital field, and has cemented its position as the second most followed cycling team in the global peloton with close to one and a half million fans on its various social media. Taking advantage of its makeover, the team will also inaugurate its web page (www.movistarteam.com) next 1st  of January.

The men’s group will start their competition season with the Australian Tour Down Under in mid-January, while the new women’s team will take on its debut race with the Volta a Valencia at the end of February. The two squads combined will take on more than 300 competition days that will see them travel through some twenty countries.

MOVISTAR TEAM – SQUADS 2018

Men’s Team: Andrey Amador (CRC), Winner Anacona (COL), Jorge Arcas, Carlos Barbero, Daniele Bennati (ITA), Carlos Betancur (COL), Nuno Bico (POR), Richard Carapaz (ECU), Héctor Carretero, Jaime Castrillo, Víctor De La Parte, Imanol Erviti, Rubén Fernández, Mikel Landa, Nelson Oliveira (POR), Antonio Pedrero, Dayer Quintana (COL), Nairo Quintana (COL), José Joaquín Rojas, Jaime Rosón, Eduardo Sepúlveda (ARG), Marc Soler, Jasha Süttlerlin (GER), Rafa Valls, Alejandro Valverde. Directors: José Luis Arrieta, Chente García Acosta, José Luis Jaimerena, Pablo Lastras.

Women’s Team: Aude Biannic (FRA), Mavi García, Alicia González, Malgorzata Jasinska (POL), Lorena Llamas, Eider Merino, Rachel Neylan (AUS), Lourdes Oyarbide, Gloria Rodríguez, Alba Teruel. Director: Jorge Sanz

New members for 2018 in italics.