Calpe – Tour de France victor Chris Froome maintained his outside hopes of winning the Vuelta a Espana by romping to victory in Friday’s 19th stage time trial and cutting race leader Nairo Quintana’s advantage to 1:21.
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Quitana eventually finished two seconds clear of Froome on the stage to effectively claim his second Grand Tour, having won the Giro d’Italia in 2014.
Froome had reduced Quintana’s lead by more than two minutes by winning Friday’s time trial to move to within 1:21.
The Sky rider then tried with a series of attacks on the final special category climb to Alto Aitana, but Quintana comfortably sat on his tail and followed all the way to the top before jumping in front just before the line. “He did a great time trial [on stage 19] and he suffered to try to win this Vuelta”.
“Time trials are painful, but I get a lot of satisfaction when I’m told I finished first”, Froome said to Spanish broadcaster TVE. “He is a great rival”, Quintana said.
While Froome still has a chance to win the Vuelta, Contador, who is now 3min 43sec behind Quintana, only has a slim hope to win a fourth title.
The Vuelta ends with a flat stage into Madrid on Sunday, so Froome and Quintana must fight for the final overall classification places on Saturday.
Quintana has twice finished runner-up to Froome at the Tour de France, the last time in July when Froome and his Sky team were dominant. “We have an advantage in our favor and now we need to defend it to Madrid”, Quintana said. I think 15 years ago, this would have a been a hard finish, before they had the Angliru.
Spain’s Jonathan Castroviejo finished 44 seconds behind Froome and Tobias Ludvigsson of Sweden was third.
The Colombian was able to match each of Froome’s efforts to end the Britain’s attempts to become the first rider since Bernard Hinault in 1978 to win the Tour de France and Vuelta a España in the same season.
Alberto Contador (Tinkoff), who finished nearly two minutes behind Froome, is now third overall while Esteban Chaves (Orica-Bike Exchange) slipped down to fourth after losing over three minutes.
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Chaves proved successful in his bid to overhaul Contador while ahead of him another Colombian, 22-year-old Darwin Atapuma (BMC Racing) duelled with Latour for the stage win.
