Tour de France champion Froome had taken a huge chunk out of Quintana’s lead in Friday’s time trial and knew his last chance was to launch a devastating attack in the final climbs.
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The British Team Sky rider still has one minute and 21 seconds to make up on Movistar’s Quintana ahead of Saturday’s penultimate mountainous stage, which is followed by a chiefly ceremonial journey to Madrid.
Froome finished the 37km route from Javea to Calpe in 46 minutes, 33 seconds to claim his second stage win of the race, 2 minutes, 16 seconds ahead of Colombia’s Quintana, who finished 11th. “I left it all out on the road”, said Froome after Friday’s impressive performance.
Nairo Quintana effectively clinched his first Tour of Spain title after holding off Chris Froome in today’s decisive mountain stage. “Winning a Grand Tour stage is just awesome”.
“It’s racing at its toughest and I’ve really enjoyed it”.
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.
“Nairo has a good team around him”.
Out of the overall contenders, Froome is the best time trial cyclist.
This is a great team to be a part of at the moment: “three stage wins and two guys in the top five overall, it’s pretty special”. “The important thing is that I still have good legs to defend my lead tomorrow”.
Froome launched six attacks on the climb to stage 20’s finish on Alto de Aitana in a bid to overturn his 1min 21sec deficit but was chased down by Quintana on each occasion. “I wondered if I might lose over three minutes, but the margin should be enough to get me to Madrid”.
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The pair rode to the summit nearly together and as Quintana sprinted clear at the last, Froome took his hands off the handlebars to applaud his rival.
