Alberto Contador proved that he is back to his best when he won today's queen stage of Tirreno-Adriatico by outsprinting Nairo Quintana at the top of the final climb. Despite reducing his deficit to overall leader Michal Kwiatkowski to just 16 seconds, the Spaniard thinks it will be hard to take the overall win.

There have been doubts whether Alberto Contador would ever find back to his former level but after his incredible stage win in today's queen stage of Tirreno-Adriatico, those doubt have been put to rest. The Spaniard easily responded to an acceleration from Nario Quintana before outsprinting the Colombian at the finish.

With the win Contador moved into second on GC but still trails overall leader Michal Kwiatkowski by 16 seconds. With a time trial and another mountain stage still coming up, the Spaniard thinks that it will be hard to take the overall win.

"It's a great win, it gives me confidence and confirms that all the work that I've been doing in the winter is paying off. I'm happy to win but the GC is going to be hard to crack. I'll try though," Contador said.

"The time bonus at the stage finish was important. Perhaps I could have attacked 1 km from the finish, but they might have come back, and someone else might have taken the stage win, and I’d have had the same time as everyone else. It was better to take the time bonus. Give the stage finish, I thought the more intelligent option was to wait for the final sprint. Tirreno-Adriatico always comes down to a matter of seconds.

“The duel wasn’t just with Quintana. In the final few metres, I was disputing the stage win with Quintana, but there are other very strong riders here.”

Contador's attack had been preceded by a strong move by his teammate Roman Kreuziger who spent a good portion of the final climb as the lone leader before finishing the stage in 4th.

“There was no plan before the stage," Contador said. "When the final climb began, Roman said he was feeling strong and wanted to attack. I thought it might be a good opportunity: if no one chased him down, he could take the stage win and move up int eh GC. If they worked to bring him back, I could save energy in the group and then attack at the stage finish. Roman did a great job today, and so did the rest of my teammates, as they have from Day One. I’m very happy with each and every one of them.

“I just carry on working as I always have. Sometimes I win, sometimes I don’t, but wouldn’t talk about a rebirth. I just get on with doing my job.

“Today the stage was very demanding. We expended a lot of energy. I hope I can recover well, and tomorrow I’ll try to gain more time on Kwiatkowski. He’s strong and it won’t be easy.” 

You can read our preview of stage 5 here.