Vuelta a Espana: Quintana takes it steady after losing mountain duel
Movistar keeping close watch 🐎on Froome's rᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚising form





168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Vuelta a España leader N👍airo Quintana (Movistar) said that despite losing against Chris Froome (Sky) on the Peña Cabarga ascent he remains fully optimistic about his chances in the longer term battle.
Quintana and Movistarꦚ made much of the running on the early part of the ascent, and when Quintana loped away, passing and catching Esteban Chaves (Orica-BikeExchange), Froome was determinedly sticking close.
Then on the final sweeping left hand bend, Froome first quickly passed the Colombian then powered ahead for a sta💧ge win, a time bonus, and what must represent a big boost to his morale.
Having lost six seconds to Froome in the Vuelta on the other short, ultra-steep ascent to Ezaro on stage three but then gained 𝐆time on the Briton on the longer Camperona and Lagos de Covadonga climbs, Quintana was his usual phlegmatic self when discussing his first direct mountain top defeat by Froome in this year's Spanish Grand Tour.
"It wꦬas a very fast cl♎imb and we realised that Froome was going very strongly," Quintana said later. "We will have to watch him closely. "
"I'm good, we have arrived together with Froome. He won the stage because he was faster🌌 than me at the end. I stiꦚll think he's strong."
"We can't be distracted because there are some difficult stages ahead where there will be a battle. Sometimes it's difficult tﷺo think about what Froome w🎉ill do because he has different strategies. We'll see how strong he is in the long mountain stages."
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His teammate Alejandro🌃 Valverde (Movistar) described himself as very satisfied despite Froome taking the victory. "Ok, he's won, but we were up there with him," Valverde, third on the stage and now third overall, said afterwards. "We were finally second and third, soܫ we can be pleased with that."
"My le𒅌gs are going well, I'm suffering, but at least they're responding."
Vavlerde was also al🧜so about the ongoing issue of power meters and he claimed that his comments "had been taken out of context. Nobody said they were bad, or anything like that. Simply I wanted to say that with them, everything is much more controlled - breakaways, performance - but I'm not saying they're bad, not in the slightest."
Alasdair Fotheringham has been reporting on cycling since 1991. He has covered every Tour de France since 1992 bar one, as well as numerous other bike races of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Olympic Games in 2008 to the now sadly defunct Subida a Urkiola hill climb in Spain. As well as working for Cyclingnews, he has also written for The Independent, The Guardian, ProCycling, The Express and Reuters.