Nairo Quintana is still on the search for a 2023 team and may have to keep looking after Italian ProTeam Corratec denied any links with the out-of-contract Colombian.
A recent report from Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport suggested that Quintana might be in line to sign with the team, who have stepped up to second division level this year.
Team Corratec, which has signed Valerio Conti, Attilio Viviani, and Alexander Konychev over the winter, received an invite to the Giro d'Italia on Thursday, but team boss Serge Parsani firmly denied that he was looking to add 2014 Giro winner Quintana.
"Actually, there has been no negotiation," Parsani told Colombian website Mundo Ciclísto. "It was a request to our team from Nairo's representative if we were interested in signing him.
"But we're a small team that doesn't have the financial capability to have a rider like him. It's very difficult because, at this level of sponsorship, we have no chance."
Parsani added that Quintana's two positive tests for tramadol during the Tour de France, for which he was later disqualified from sixth place, would also make the signing difficult, given that Corratec recently joined the Movement for Clean Cycling (MPCC).
"At the end of December, we registered with the MPCC, who fight against problems with drugs such as tramadol," he said. "The ASO also asked us to join and at the moment it is difficult to make an agreement with Nairo.
"We'd need the UCI to give Nairo a hand by allowing him to join a WorldTour squad because we're all in the MPCC. Only teams who aren't in it – like Soudal-QuickStep, UAE Team Emirates, and others – would be able to sign him."
Currently nine WorldTour teams are signed up to the MPCC as well as 15 ProTeams and 13 Continental teams. That suggests that several doors remain open for Quintana, who was released by Arkéa-Samsic at the end of his contract following a three-year spell with the team, having previously stated that he had signed a contract extension.
Since then, the 32-year-old has had few suitors at the top level, with numerous WorldTour teams dismissing the idea of signing him. He has, however, received an offer from Miguel Angel López's new squad Medellín-EPM, though he has insisted on several occasions through the winter that he has a deal lined up.
In any case, Parsani's Corratec team is another to add to the list of teams which will not be signing Quintana.
"We would have to resort to a miracle," he said. "But today, not even the Pope can perform miracles and it is very difficult to do so."
