Saturday 27 August 2016 11:08, UK
Chris Froome narrowly avoided a late crash involving Alberto Contador as Jonas Van Genechten won stage seven of the Vuelta a Espana and Darwin Atapuma retained the overall lead.
Contador (Tinkoff) started the day 1min 52sec down in the general classification and his miserable race so far continued when he fell after a clash of wheels on a left-hand turn with just over 500m to go.
The 33-year-old Spaniard managed to finish the stage and because the incident happened inside the last 3km, he did not lose any time.
Froome (Team Sky), Nairo Quintana (Movistar) and Atapuma (BMC Racing) were all held up by the crash and lost touch with the front of the race, but they too were given the same time as the stage winner and the gaps between them overall remain unchanged.
Contador said: "I was really well positioned, but suddenly somebody who doesn't like using their brakes pulled across and I went down. Right now my left side is cut up, so is my wrist. Things are getting really complicated."
Van Genechten (IAM Cycling) launched his sprint early on a slightly uphill finish in Puebla de Sanabria and held on to beat Daniele Bennati (Tinkoff) into second and Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) into third.
Valverde retains second place overall and cuts Atapuma's lead to 24 seconds after receiving four bonus seconds, while Froome stays 32 seconds down in third and Quintana remains 38 seconds adrift in fourth.
Contador's crash was his third of what is turning into a nightmare summer. He fell twice in the opening two stages of the Tour de France and was forced to abandon the race a week later.
The Vuelta continues on Saturday with a 181.5km eighth stage ending with a steep summit finish at La Camperona. Find out more about the route in our race guide and follow the action with our live blog from 3pm BST.
Stage seven result
1 Jonas Van Genechten (Bel) IAM Cycling, 3:55:44
2 Daniele Bennati (Ita) Tinkoff, same time
3 Alejandro Valverde (Esp) Movistar, st
4 Philippe Gilbert (Bel) BMC Racing, st
5 Kevin Reza (Fra) FDJ.fr, st
6 Gediminas Bagdonas (Ltn) Ag2r-La Mondiale, st
7 Gianni Meersman (Bel) Etixx - Quick-Step, st
8 Kristian Sbaragli (Ita) Dimension Data, st
9 Romain Hardy (Fra) Cofidis, st
10 Tosh Van Der Sande (Bel) Lotto Soudal, st
General classification
1 Darwin Atapuma (Col) BMC Racing, 25:41:05
