Tom Dumoulin survived another hard battle for the GC and again managed to limit his losses on the uphill finish of stage 16. Frank Schleck won the stage from the breakaway and Joaquim Rodriguez takes over GC lead.

Stage 16 of the Vuelta a España was another tough mountain stage with seven registered climbs along its 185km route, including an uphill finish on the Ermita de Alba, a hors category climb with gradients up to 21%.

The early break of ten riders received a lot of space, as their maximum advantage reached up to 21 minutes. Initially Team Katusha controlled the gap at the bunch and later on Tinkoff Saxo assisted them.

On the penultimate climb Astana Pro Team took over the initiative to set the pace for race leader Fabio Aru and a lot of riders got into troubles. Tom Dumoulin managed to follow the GC group until the final kilometer sign, as he gave it all. At the finish he lost 27” on the first GC contender Joaquim Rodriguez (Team Katusha), who takes over the GC lead. He is still in 4th overall ahead of tomorrow’s rest day and Wednesday’s time trial.

“I am feeling good,” said Tom Dumoulin. “The legs were very good today and I managed to limit the losses really well once again.

“We worked super well together and the guys were fantastic. The pace was high in the finale but Lawson [Craddock] was still there to help me until the second to last climb, which was great. After that, only a small group was left and most of the GC guys were isolated as well. In the end I fought my way up to the finish.

"That was much better than expected. I didn't feel so good on the first-category climb - it went really fast - but I was never really in trouble and I thought, 'ah we'll give it a go on the last climb'. I had really good legs, to lose 27 seconds is really really good, still everything is open.

"Yesterday I made a mistake - I could have hung on a little bit longer but I went too quickly to my own pace. Today I thought 'ok I’m just going to go and when I blow up I blow up', but I didn't. It was really fast, the battle didn’t even start yet then already Valverde and Chaves were dropped. The speed was so high that it was not possible really to battle against each other. It was very steep. I’m really happy with it.

"That [overall win] will be very difficult. There will become hard stages coming up in the next week, but it's looking good now. Everything depends on the time trial.

“After Wednesday’s time trial we will know a bit more about my chances for the final GC. Even if my time trial is really good, there will be three hard days to go.”