The Tour de France champion reduced Quintana’s lead of 3 minutes, 37 seconds entering the 19th stage to 1:21 before the penultimate and decisive day.
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Quintana defended his lead over second-placed Froome on stage 20’s summit finish and now only has to avoid crashing on Sunday’s final stage into Madrid to seal 1min 23sec triumph.
George Bennett’s moved up a spot in the Vuelta a Espana general classification with just two days to go.
“It’s a nice result, but I would much rather try to gamble and get into the top 10”.
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.
He said: “There is still one more day of tough racing tomorrow”.
Perhaps Froome knew all along that he would be unable to make up over a minute on the Colombian, but that didn’t stop him giving everything and his legs were empty when Quintana sprinted away from him in the final meters.
Spain’s Jonathan Castroviejo finished 44 seconds behind Froome and Tobias Ludvigsson of Sweden was third.
It will be the first time the 26-year-old Colombian has defeated Froome in a Grand Tour, having been edged out by the Briton at the Tour de France in 2013, 2015 and 2016.
“It s a really big dream come true for me”, said Nielsen. “Quintana still has more than a minute of advantage, but we will keep fighting”. It’s going to be tough to beat him.
After the first intermediate time check, located at 12.5 kilometres into the 37km course from Xabia to Calp, Froome posted the fastest time and clawed back 46 seconds on Quintana.
“He’s a great rider, and his team was at a very good level, and they always made trouble for me”.
Quintana crossed with the 11th best time.
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Chaves’ British team-mate Simon Yates secured sixth place overall.
