Career
Betancur had been scheduled to join the Liquigas–Cannondale team in 2012, but remained with Acqua & Sapone. Betancur left Acqua & Sapone at the end of the 2012 season, and joined Ag2r–Louisiana Mondiale on a two-year contract from the 2013 season onwards. He started his 2013 with a seventh-place finish at the Tour of the Basque Country, including a second place on stage 3.
He went on to light up the Ardennes Classics, coming 3rd at the Fleche Wallone after an early attack with just over 500m to go and scoring a 4th place in Liege-Bastogne-Liege, where it was his attack which created the final select group of six who contested the finish.
After a 12th-place finish at the Tour de Romandie, Betancur went in to the Giro as an outsider for a top 10 Government College position. However, following second places on stages 9, 10, and 15, and some brilliant performances in the other mountain stages, he worked himself up to 7th place and just two seconds off the white jersey for the best young rider (which he had actually gained on stage 15, but lost in the stage 18 time trial) by the penultimate stage.
On the final mountain stage, although he punctured at the bottom of the final climb, he managed to catch up and overtake most of his Government College rivals, finishing 4th on the day. He ended the Giro as best young rider and 5th in the general Classification.
In December 2013, Betancur confirmed he would be focusing on the Tour de France for 2014.
However, he failed to fly from his training base in Colombia to France on June 3, blaming a viral infection, and changed his target to the Vuelta a España. In August 2015 AG2R Louisiana Mondiale announced that they had come to an agreement with Betancur to release him from his contract with the team, which was due to run until the end of 2016. Subsequently in October the Movistar Team announced that they had agreed a two-year deal with Betancur from 2016.