France’s Pierre-Roger Latour won the stage in a time of five hours 19 minutes 41 seconds.
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Quintana knew he only had to keep Froome within sight on Saturday in order to keep the red jersey with a largely processional final stage to Madrid to come and the Movistar rider stuck to the Brit’s wheel before passing him at the end of the 193.2 kilometre stage.
The stage saw four second category climbs before finishing on the special category Alto de Aitana, but supported by his powerful Movistar team Quintana was able to hold off the repeated attacks by Froome, who was left with just David Lopez for support on the final climb.
Froome cut his gap to Quintana by over two minutes by storming to a time trial win on Friday, but his bid ultimately never recovered from losing 2min 37secs when he was caught out by an early attack by Quintana on stage 15. “That’s the way things are, I congratulate Nairo for his win, Froome for a great race and Chaves, who had very good tactics”.
Froome clapped as Quintana pulled past him following the last of several one-on-one climbing duels by the stars on the three-week Grand Tour.
Quintana even had the strength to accelerate away from Froome at the finish to claim 10th spot – his Team Sky rival sportingly applauding the Colombian.
Froome also had to settle for second in the Vuelta after losing out to Juan Jose Cobo in his breakout tour in 2012 and Contador in 2014. “I am grateful to them”.
Barring a final-day accident or incident Quintana will celebrate a second Grand Tour success, with a 104.8km route from Las Rozas to the capital to encounter before officially sealing a maiden Vuelta title on Sunday.
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Froome finished 1:23 behind Quintana, while Esteban Chaves moved past Contador into a third-place finish after making up time with a long-distance attack.
