Chris Froome had a dramatic day in the Vuelta a Espana as he was briefly distanced after an early crash before gaining 2 seconds on his rivals in the finale. The Brit was pleased with the outcome as he appears to have escaped the incident relatively unscathed.

Chris Froome jumped clear of the peloton in the final metres of stage seven at the Vuelta a Espana to claw back two seconds despite being involved in an early crash.

Finishing the stage with a bandaged right elbow and knee, the Team Sky rider unleashed an impressive acceleration on the uphill finish in Alcaudete to take seventh on the stage, two seconds ahead of his main GC rivals.

Froome now sits just two seconds off third-placed Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) and 20 back on race leader Alejandro Valverde (Movistar), despite the scare which saw him temporarily distanced from the peloton amid a frantic start.

As the race approached the third-category Alto de Illora, Froome found himself on the ground. After a bike change and a stop off at the medical car, the Brit then needed to rely on help from his team-mates to bridge back across to the bunch after an increase in pace.

Once safely ensconced, the stage settled back into a rhythm as it became increasingly clear that the day’s four-man breakaway would contest the win. Alessandro De Marchi (Cannondale) finished strongly to claim the stage, 1:35 ahead of nearest breakaway partner Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin-Sharp).

But it was a surprise burst from Froome which grabbed the attention as he followed an attack from Philippe Gilbert (BMC Racing) and Dan Martin (Garmin-Sharp) with 200 metres to go and finished with a flurry. Team Sky had arrived at the front with 10km to go to pace the bunch into the finish, capping another strong team display.

"I'm feeling okay," Froome confirmed to TeamSky.com after the stage, "but you definitely get the feeling that when bad luck comes it comes more than once. But all things considered I'm feeling all right and I think I got off relatively unscathed. It's good to have another day behind us now.

"When the crash happened a Giant-Shimano rider went down in front of me just to my left. I swerved to try and avoid that and went down. Then the guys paced me back. It took us a good 15km before we got back into the peloton.

"The rest of the guys did a great job looking after me, pacing me back into the race and keeping me in a good position for the rest of the day."

After a testing day Froome admitted that taking a couple of seconds on the line was a nice bonus.

"I'll definitely take that after a stage like today," he added. "At the end of the race you might need all the seconds you can to defend your place. I'll keep chipping away and get closer to the time trial."