“But equally for the GC guys, it was one of the toughest climbs of the Vuelta and on those types of climbs there’s not so much tactics as race for survival”.
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Froome risked losing even more ground as he struggled to keep pace with Colombians Quintana and Johan Esteban Chaves and Spaniard Alberto Contador, but the Briton caught up with the trio late on to finish 25th.
The other Kiwi in the race, Orica BikeExchange rider Sam Bewley finished 158th in the time trial to be 142nd overall. “We have an advantage in our favor and now we need to defend it to Madrid”, Quintana said. “With Movistar Nairo has a strong team – it’s really going to be hard to beat him”.
“We saw the same with Jens Keuekeleire on stage 12, and today it was my turn to give it a go, and it was really unbelievable”.
“Froome was flying”, Quintana said.
Chris Froome still has one more mountain to climb, both literally and figuratively, but he gave himself a fighting chance of winning La Vuelta a Espana with a dominant display to win the time trial on Stage 19.
Quintana said: “I’m very proud of having been able to beat him”.
On a technical course featuring a few smoothly uphill sections, Yves Lampaert (Etixx-Quick Step) set the first reference time in 47min 59sec.
Quintana (Movistar) was unable to match Froome’s exceptional speed and had to settle for 10th position. He suffered a 2-43-minute loss Sunday when Quintana and Alberto Contador (Tinkoff) pulled off what could have been called a insane tactic by attacking free in the first 10 kilometres of a mountain stage.
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.
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“He did a great time trial [on stage 19] and he suffered to try to win this Vuelta”.
