Two days after his excellent stage win, Winner Anacona again did a great performance when he finished a surprise 15th in the Vuelta a Espana time trial. Sitting in fourth overall, the Colombian described it as the time trial of his life and is now confident of an overall top 10 result.

Two days ago Winner Anacona enjoyed the most beautiful moment of his professional career when he won a big mountain stage of the Vuelta a Espana. Afterwards, he made it clear that he targeted an overall top 10.

Today he confirmed that such a result is within his reach when he was a surprise 15th in the long time trial and so defended his overall fourth place.

“I’m very happy with what I managed to do today," he said. "My performance is above my expectation. I’ve just done my best time trial since I turned professional. Therefore I’m high on GC just where I wanted to be. My goal of finishing the Vuelta in the top 10 seems reachable.

"Today I felt good, the legs responded as I wanted them to, even after the rest day.. It was a time trial in which you had to pay attention from the beginning to avoid crashes and to keep a bit of energy for the finale.

"I opted for a change of bike and I must say that in the end I was fine. Due to the bikes that we have from Merida we can always evaluate various options in the choice of the materials for different courses.

"Tomorrow will be a difficult stage with a tough final climb, the important thing is to stay in the top positions and then defend myself as much as possible until the finish line."

"I was expecting a nice chrono from Winner today," sports directot Joxean Fernandez Matxin said. "His condition is good and the course was not impossible for him. Watching the times calmly after the race, we can see how he was good enough to be in the middle of the group of GC riders.. This shows that we can work well to get a good result in the overall standings at the end of the Vuelta.

"Today we chose to start with a Merida Reacto Evo bike to maximize its compromise between aerodynamics and ease of driving in the first part of the course which was full of curves.

"At the top of the climb we changed Winner's bike, putting him on a Merida Warp TT, a pure time trial bike, in view of the second part of the course where aerodynamics was essential to maintain the high speed on the descne and in the long straights of the finale."