Movistar Team rider Quintana holds an advantage of three minutes and 37 seconds over nearest rival, Tour de France victor Chris Froome with five stages remaining, including Friday’s individual time trial.
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Nairo Quintana is poised to win the Spanish Vuelta after protecting his lead over Chris Froome in a grueling penultimate stage in the southern mountains on Saturday.
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.
He will need to make up 1:21 on the Colombian, but now holds a comfortable advantage over third place Contador in the overall standings.
Spain’s Jonathan Castroviejo, fourth at the Olympic Games, was the only rider to finish within one minute of Froome’s time, ending 44 seconds off the pace. I don’t think there’s much more I could have done today. “Now I am in very good condition and these type of time trials haven t gone badly for me”.
And the Briton – seeking to become only the third man to win the Tour de France and Vuelta in the same year – since duly set off at a blistering pace, completing the first section of the course nearly half a second quicker than Castroviejo.
Quintana said that he will ride defensively and leave Froome to try all the tactics, insane or not, he can to dislodge him.
“It’s racing at its toughest and I’ve really enjoyed it”.
“He has more than one minute but we are going to keep on fighting”, Froome said.
“We’ll see (what happens) tomorrow and I’ll speak with my team-mates tonight”.
Quintana crossed with the 11th best time. Froome ahead of Contador and Quintana while Chaves was quickly losing time.
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Quintana, already the victor of the 2014 Giro d’Italia, appears more confident every morning when he steps off Movistar’s blue team bus to the mass of fans.
