The small Colombian climber Nairo Quintana (Movistar) defied all expectations in today's final time trial in the Vuelta al Pais Vasco with a stunning 2nd place behind world time trial champion Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-Quick Step). The performance secured him the overall victory ahead of the Sky duo of pre-race favourite Richie Porte and previous leader Sergio Henao.

 

Even though he entered the stage 2nd overall only 6 seconds behind race leader Sergio Henao, most people had written off Nairo Quintana ahead of today's decisive time trial in the Vuelta al Pais Vasco. Instead, expectations were that time trial specialist Richie Porte would crush his GC opposition to take the overall victory.

 

However, Quintana made a stunning performance and as he passed the intermediate check, he was the best of the GC contenders and had taken 10 seconds out of his Australian rival. He kept the pace in the latter part of the course and at the finish he had beaten Porte by no less than 23 seconds.

 

The performance was enough to take the overall win ahead of the Sky captain while previous race leader put in a gutsy performance to end up 7th on the day. Sky's Colombian rider managed to hold off a strong Simon Spilak (Katusha) by one second in the GC to take the final podium performance.

 

The course was not your typical time trial course for the big specialists. With almost no flat roads, plenty of steep hills and a number of wet, technical descents, it favoured the GC contenders more than time traillists like Adriano Malori (Lampre) and Jonathan Castroviejo (Movistar).

 

However, this did not prevent world time trial champion Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) from taking the stage win. After falling out of GC contention due to a crash on stage 1, the German had an early start and faced a long wait before he was declared winner of the stage.

 

Alberto Contador (Saxo-Tinkoff) was expected to be the Porte's main challenger, but the Spaniard once again disappointed and could only manage 10th. Having struggled to regain his former strength in the discipline after returning from suspension, the Spaniard had to settle for 5th in the GC and thus failed to win both of his early-season objectives: the Tirreno-Adriatico and the Vuelta al Pais Vasco.

 

Quintana's overall victory moves him into 4th in the WorldTour rankings while Porte is just ahead of him in 3rd. Peter Sagan remains at the head of the rankings with Cancellara in 2nd. The next race in the WorldTour calendar is tomorrow's Paris-Roubaix in which Cancellara is expected to shine.

 

Result:

1. Tony Martin

2. Nairo Quintana +0.17

3. Benat Intxausti +0.32

4. Richie Porte +0.40

5. Simon Spilak +0.48

6. Jean-Christophe Peraud +0.51

7. Sergio Henao +0.57

8. Carlos Betancur +1.05

9. Pieter Weening +1.06

10. Alberto Contador +1.07

 

General classification:

1. Nairo Quintana

2. Richie Porte +0.23

3. Sergio Henao +0.34

4. Simon Spilak +0.35

5. Alberto Contador +0.54

6. Pieter Weening +1.18

7. Carlo Betancur +1.19

8. Benat Intxausti +1.57

9. Wouter Poels +2.47

10. John Gadret +2.56