Chris Froome finishes strongly but loses time to key rival
Tuesday 30 August 2016 00:00, UK
Nairo Quintana took the overall lead of the Vuelta a Espana and gained 31 seconds on Chris Froome by winning a compelling battle between the favourites on stage 10's summit finish.
Quintana (Movistar) left his rivals behind with a superb attack 3.5km from the line at Lagos de Covadonga and hung on to beat breakaway rider Robert Gesink (LottoNL-Jumbo) into second place by 24 seconds and Froome (Team Sky) into third by 25 seconds.
Quintana received 10 bonus seconds for his win and now opens up overall leads of 57 seconds over second-placed Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) and 58 seconds over third-placed Froome, who claimed four bonus seconds.
Froome was initially dropped with 9.5km of the 12km climb still to go and later fell to more than 40 seconds off the pace when Alberto Contador (Tinkoff) and Quintana both launched attacks with 6.5km left.
Those two looked to be the strongest climbers in the race at that point, but then Froome began accelerating and rapidly closed the gap to about 15 seconds.
Recognising the danger, Quintana attacked again and pulled away from Froome once more, passing leader-on-the-road Gesink on the way to the first Vuelta stage win of his career.
Contador had no answer to Quintana's move and was again unable to respond when Froome caught and passed him with just over 1.5km to go.
The Spaniard eventually crossed the line 1min 5sec down on Quintana and is now all but out of contention for overall victory, at 2min 54sec back in fifth.
Despite Froome's encouraging display in the second half of the climb, Quintana looked peerless throughout the ascent and now appears to be the rider to beat in this year's race.
Quintana said: "I had very good sensations, my team worked really well and I was motivated to win the stage. I've always dreamed of winning here, and today I've managed to do it."
The Vuelta pauses for its first rest day on Tuesday but resumes on Wednesday with a 168.6km 11th stage ending with a category-one summit finish at Pena Cabarga. Find out more about the route in our race guide and follow the action with our live blog from 3pm BST.
Stage 10 result
1 Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar, 4:50:31
2 Robert Gesink (Ned) LottoNL-Jumbo, +24sec
3 Chris Froome (GB) Team Sky, +25
4 Omar Fraile (Esp) Dimension Data, +28
5 Alejandro Valverde (Esp) Movistar, same time
6 Michele Scarponi (Ita) Astana, st
7 Esteban Chaves (Col) Orica-BikeExchange, +1:02
8 Alberto Contador (Esp) Tinkoff, +1:05
9 Simon Yates (GB) Orica-BikeExchange, +1:09
10 Fabio Felline (Ita) Trek-Segafredo, +1:11
General classification
1 Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar, 38:37:07
2 Alejandro Valverde (Esp) Movistar, +57sec
3 Chris Froome (GB) Team Sky, +58
4 Esteban Chaves (Col) Orica-BikeExchange, +2:09
5 Alberto Contador (Esp) Tinkoff, +2:54
6 Leopold Konig (Cze) Team Sky, +2:57
7 David de la Cruz (Esp) Etixx - Quick-Step, +3:03
8 Simon Yates (GB) Orica-BikeExchange, +3:06
9 Michele Scarponi (Ita) Astana, +3:14
10 Samuel Sanchez (Esp) Movistar, +3:20
