The Colombian heads into Friday’s 37km time trial with a commanding lead of three minutes and 37 seconds over triple Tour de France victor Chris Froome (Team Sky). “Now I am in very good condition and these type of time trials haven’t gone badly for me”, he said.
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Froome’s sparkling time trial gave him reason to believe he might improve on his second places in 2011 and 2014 after he regained most of the 2min 37sec which he lost to Quintana during last Sunday’s brief, intense mountain stage to Formigal, where the Colombian and Alberto Contador caught him and Team Sky napping at the start of the 118km.
“There’s still one more really tough day of racing tomorrow”.
Italian veteran Daniele Bennati (Tinkoff) and Germany stage seven victor Jonas Van Genechten (IAM Cycling) completed the top five, while Gianni Meersman – the Belgian sprinter who notched a brace in the opening week – could only manage eighth place despite some hard work from his Etixx-QuickStep team to reel in a five-man break which at one point held a seven-minute advantage over the pack.
“Quintana, with Movistar, he has a really good team around him, so it is going to be hard to beat him”.
But Quintana and Froome, as well as Chaves, responded to the three-time former Vuelta winner’s advances and reeled the Spaniard back in as the quartet finished 3:27 down on Frank.
Spain’s Jonathan Castroviejo finished 44 seconds behind Froome and Tobias Ludvigsson of Sweden was third.
“I’ve had a rough season, not much was working as I wanted – I had to abandon the Tour de Suisse and the Tour de France”, he said.
“To finally have a victory after more than two years, winning a Grand Tour stage, it’s just unbelievable”.
Froome will need a similarly impressive day tomorrow, despite cutting heavily into Quintana’s advantage, with the 193km mountain stage from Benidorm to Alto de Aitana providing a final chance to gain time.
“Initially we thought we needed more than three minutes to be able to defend the leader’s jersey and we have done it”.
“There will be battles in the general classification which will interest a lot of people to push the pace. Of course I’m not just going to give up now”.
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Andrew Talansky (Cannondale-Drapac) moved ahead of British rider Simon Yates into the top five. Victor Campenaerts (BEL/LNL) 1:47, 6.
