Not Movie star, Movistar, the sixth best team in the world according to the quite imperfect ranking system.

Last Season

In one word, disappointing. The Spanish team had really lofty goals for 2018 and didn't deliver on most of it. The most high profile was Nairo Quintana's attempt to do the Giro d'Italia Tour de France double, and missing my some distance. The season started well winning the Tour of Valencia and Tirreno-Adriatico, and the Giro started well winning on Blockhaus(above). Unfortunately for Quintana that meant he was in the pink jersey for the stage 10 time trial, rather than his own skinsuit. That probably didn't cost him the race or anything but it's a few watts and if you're only going to be in pink for a day it's a bad day to choose. Quintana was never significantly better than Dumoulin going up hill, which he would have expected to be and needed to be to win the race. He got back some time when Dumoulin stopped for a nature break on the Stelvio stage. Quintana got back into pink on stage 19, but with less than a minute's lead going into the final day time trial it was something of a formality he would lose. He then looked visibly tired at the Tour de France, wasn't able to offer his usual challenge and finished twelveth.

Movistar's other big GC rider, Alejandro Valverde, had an even better start to the season than Quintana. He won the tour of Murcia, a stage and the overall at the Ruta del Sol, three stages and the overall at the Volta Catalunya, a stage and the overall at the Tour of the Basque Country, his fourth Fleche Wallone in a row and then his fourth win at Liege-Bastogne-Liege. It was a quite exceptional spring, but when he got to the Tour he crashed on stage one, breaking his ankle and ending his season.

At Movistar's home race, with an exhausted Nairo Quintana not defending his title and Valverde being injured, the Vuelta was a disaster. They didn't have a rider that could contend on GC, and they didn't win a single stage. The only non-Quintana, non-Valverde win on the world tour last year was Gorka Izagirre's breakaway win at the Giro on stage eight.

Who left?

Speaking of Gorka Izagirre, he goes to join his brother Ion at Bahrain-Merida. Former world hour record holder Alex Dowsett goes to Katusha, former european time trial champion Jonathan Castroviejo moves to Sky. Rory Sutherland, Jesus Herrada and Daniel Moreno also leave.

Who's Joining?

Mikel Landa (above, left) is the big name. Fourth at the Tour de France, two stages and the mountains jersey at the Giro, Mikel Landa is one of the strongest climbers in the peleton to not have a grand tour win to his name, and he'll hope Movistar is the place he can achieve that. He's joined by Jaime Roson, Jaime Castrillo, Rafael Valls and Eduardo Sepulveda.

How will 2018 go?

Valverde will win Fleche Wallone again because why not. Landa will be on course for great success at the Giro before "getting sick" (apparently he doesn't like it when his legs hurt which is bizarre for a road cyclist, that's the job). Quintana will end up winning the Vuelta to make up for another failed Tour de France bid.