There are four serious road stages left of this Vuelta a Espana, and only two of them have any chance of dislodging Chris Froome from his top spot and preventing the 32-year-old from a remarkable achievement in doing the Tour De France and Vuelta a Espana double for the first time since Bernard Hinault in 1978.
The Briton, a noted time trial specialist, won today’s 40-kilometre test to managed to extend his lead over Vincenzo Nibali of Bahrain-Merida to 1:58, a gap that he should defend comfortably if repeating his performances over the past two weeks. On this stage, he managed to beat Wilco Kelderman (Team Sunweb) by 29 seconds with Vincenzo Nibali in third at 57 seconds, putting the same distance between them on the general classification.
Kelderman managed to edge ahead of Russian Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha) who rode a strong race himself to finish fourth, 59 second down on Froome, although that effort was not enough to keep him on the podium, leaving him 3:07 down on Froome and perhaps more importantly, 37 seconds down on Wilco Kelderman, who now sits in third place.
One of the biggest winners of the day was Alberto Contador, who managed to finish on the same time as Zakarin and push himself upfront fifth in the process, although with a gap of 4:58 to Froome and over two and a half minutes to Kelderman in third and his hopes of a podium looks to be over along with Miguel Angel Lopez, who now sits sixth but at 5:25 off the lead of Froome and with a sizeable gap towards him and the podium, for all that his place in the Top 10 would look assured.
Wout Poels managed to finish a fine seventh, and in the process put him into the top 10, in-between Fabio Aru and Michael Woods, with the three separated by 13 seconds making the battle for seventh to tenth a fascinating one over the next four days.
Two big losers were Fabio Aru, whose 26th place, 3:03 down on Froome - effectively ended his podium hopes, while Chaves' 4:01 loss saw him drop from fifth to ninth in the overall standings. Tobias Ludvigsson (FDJ) and Lennard Kemna (Team Sunweb) were the best of the early times once they had passed Daniel Oss (BMC) but soon Alberto Contador was rolling off the start ramp for the final time and in front of his own fans, he was determined to put on a show. And put on a show he did, with a fastest first sectional and the initial fastest time. However, he would be passed by Wilco Kelderman and then Froome, who would power onto victory and give himself a sizeable lead to defend over the next four stages, with Vuelta glory now within his grasp.
