The battle for overall victory at the Vuelta Ciclista al País Vasco in Saturday’s individual time trial turned out to be more nail-bitingly exciting than anticipated prior to the TT as Nairo Quintana (Movistar) displayed a convincing performance to defeat his main rivals and claim the overall win ahead of Richie Porte (Sky).

For Team Saxo-Tinkoff's Alberto Contador 10th in the TT and 5th overall must be less than he had hoped for but Saxo-Tinkoff’s Sports Director, Philippe Maudit, was satisfied nonetheless.

“In the early phases of the TT Alberto struggled to settle into a steady rhythm, but once he got going, he did a splendid TT during the latter half, enjoying a powerful ride on the climbs,” Maudit said. Looking back at the past week I can’t help being impressed with his performance. 10 days ago he lay in bed with a bout of the flu and yet he rode with the best on all the climbs here in the Basque Country. In general our performance as a team has also improved since the Tirreno-Adriatico and we definitely feel that we are on the right track for out main objective of the season, the Tour de France.”