Daniel Moreno lost the leader's jersey in the Vuelta a Burgos on the final day after he was beaten by Nairo Quintana in the final time trial. The Spaniard admitted to have lost an honest fight and claimed that the final descent had worked in the Colombian's favour.

The final stage of the Vuelta a Burgos brought a 12,45 km individual time trial in Aranda de Duero on Sunday. Riding last as the race leader, Team Katusha’s Daniel Moreno fought to keep the jersey but just missed the overall classification by three seconds.

"It is a pity but it was an honest fight. It is not funny to lose a race with just 3 seconds, but there was an honest battle. We had the reference times of Quintana. We were always at the same time splits, I was even slightly faster, one to two seconds, but Nairo made it up in the descent. He apparently took more risks. That's also part of cycling. In the end I finish second overall in my first race since the Dauphiné in June. I cannot complain. I am really happy that I started here in Burgos. I will be ready for the Vuelta a España," said Daniel Moreno.

Moreno’s strong performance gave him the points classification for the Vuelta a Burgos.

The stage victory went to Aleksejs Saramotins of IAM Cycling at one-second ahead of Nairo Quintana.  Moreno was fifth at four seconds. Quintana’s second place gave him the advantage on the overall and the Colombian rider took the classification by 3 seconds to Moreno. Rounding out the podium was Janez Brajkovic of Astana. 

"In general I am happy with the final result. As a non-TT rider, Dani did a very good time trial.  He is 5th at just four seconds off the winner. He was good. I saw him pushing with power and shifting through the gears correctly. Dani never had a weak moment. Only the descent made the difference," said team sports director José Azevedo.