Quintana thanked his Movistar team and dedicated the win to Jose Rojas, a Movistar rider who crashed midway through the stage and was evacuated in ambulance with a leg injury.
Advertisement
But the real interest was in how much time Froome could take off Castroviejo’s Colombian teammate Quintana, and in the end the diminutive climber lost 2mins16 seconds as he finished the stage in 11.
Quintana saw 2.16 minutes clipped off his lead by Froome who began the day 1.21 behind in the overall classification.
Two stages of the three-week tour remain, but with Sunday’s finale a mere procession around the streets of central Madrid, Saturday’s 193.2km ride from Benidorm to Alto de Aitana will determine whether Froome can become the first man in 38 years to do the Tour de France-Vuelta double.
“Of course, I’m really happy with the result today, especially at this point of the season”, said Froome.
“There is still one really tough day of racing tomorrow [yesterday]”.
“Alberto Contador (Tinkoff) also had a decent time trial in eighth place, moving him into third overall as Esteban Chaves (ORICA-BikeExchange) faltered, placing 24th and dropping to fourth overall, 1’11” behind Contador. Quintana still has more than one minute of advantage, but we will keep fighting all the way. “We still have an advantage and we need to defend it”. “He did a great time trial [on stage 19] and he suffered to try to win this Vuelta”.
Froome, a three-time Tour victor, is set to finish the Vuelta as runner-up for a third time.
Overnight leader Julien Vermote of Belgium – who had led since winning Monday’s second stage – had an very bad day in the saddle and slipped out of the top 10 in the overall standings.
Advertisement
Froome continued to press on in the closing half of the route, with the Team Sky rider coming cross the line in a time of 46min 33sec. He finished second in 2011 and 2014.
