Alberto Contador defended himself against Alejandro Valverde's attacks in today's final road stage of the Vuelta al Pais Vasco and now it will all come down to tomorrow's final time trial. Despite many seeing it as a duel between himself and Valverde, Contador sees Michal Kwiatkowski as an equally dangerous opponent.

Alberto Contador and Alejandro Valverde wnt head to head  on today’s final climb, but ultimately they were chased down by the leading group. The leader of Tinkoff-Saxo recognized at the finish that he was no surprised by that attack.

“I expected it, he has enough desire and I supposed he wanted to prove it, especially when Movistar pulled so hard," he said. "It was also a good opportunity for the stage, but in the end the group behind had some Omega and BMC riders who wanted to push hard both for the
stage and for not losing time in the overall. Furthermore, there was a long flat finish.

"It was quite risky to continue because if they had caught us in the final kilometre, we may have lost 10 to 15 seconds which we would have regretted tomorrow.

Among the rivals for the final time trial, Alberto does not differentiate between Kwiatkowski and Valverde.

“Kwiatkowski is a great specialist, but Alejandro is in a very good shape," he said. "The time trial suits him very well and I can’t say one or another, what I can say is that the race is still very open.”

Finally, Contador said the chrono is "fairly typical for the Tour of the Basque Country. The climbs are not as hard as usual, but we'll see how I feel tomorrow and if I adapt well to the course."

“The stage was as hard as we expected but our main goal was that Alberto would cross the finish line with Valverde and the other favorites and we succeeded," sports director Philippe Mauduit said. "But a 12 second lead is not an overwhelmingly safe one and Alberto really has to live up to his very best in order to keep the rivals behind.

"However, the course suits him well as it includes two climbs of 3.5 and 4 kilometers but we have seen Valverde perform excellently as well on the slopes so it’s going to be a real thrill sitting in the car behind him tomorrow."