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Vuelta a Espana organisers have to be happy with their decision to place a long individual time trial ahead of the final weekend of racing at the Spanish Grand Tour, as Team Sky's Chris Froome put 2:16 into race leader Nairo Quintana (Movistar) on the roads to Calpe on Friday and now sits just 1:21 behind the Colombian with two stages remaining.
Froome covered the 37km rolling course in 46:33, while Quintana stumbled ahead of Saturday's penultimate stage, which includes four classified climbs before the summit finish on Alto de Aitana.
Froome’s time on Friday was 43 seconds quicker than second-placed Jonathan Castroviejo (Movistar), the former Spanish time trial champion having posted what looked like it might be the stage-winning time earlier in the day. Giant-Alpecin’s Tobias Ludvigsson was third on the stage with a well-paced ‘negative split’ ride.