Vuelta a Espana ratings: Nairo Quintana and co marked out of 10
Tuesday 6 September 2016 12:53, UK
Nairo Quintana is in control of the Vuelta a Espana with just two summit finishes, a time trial and two sprint stages remaining.
He leads second-placed Chris Froome by 3min 37sec and third-placed Esteban Chaves by 3min 57sec.
Here, we rate the overall contenders out of 10 so far…
Nairo Quintana (1st overall)
Quintana has ridden flawlessly up to now. Not only has he been brilliant in the mountains, but he is also producing one of the most tactically astute performances of his career. The best example was on stage 15, when he was one of only 14 riders who followed a surprise early attack from Alberto Contador and went on to gain a potentially race-winning 2min 43sec over Froome.
The big challenges now are limiting his losses on stage 19's individual time trial and sustaining his excellent form all the way to Madrid.
Rating: 9/10
Chris Froome (2nd overall, +3min 37sec)
Froome's race has been a mixed bag. He started sharply but then dipped by losing time to Quintana on stages eight and 10. He seemed to have recovered when he won stage 11 and nullified a rampant Quintana on stage 14, but then he made a huge tactical error by sitting too far down the peloton at the start of stage 15, which meant he was unable to follow Contador's surprise attack and went on to suffer heavy losses to Quintana.
There are still two summit finishes and the 37km time trial still to come, but it looks like he has left himself with too much to do.
Rating: 6/10
Esteban Chaves (3rd overall, +3min 57sec)
Chaves' race has been a similar story to Froome's, which is reflected in the fact the pair are now separated by just 20 seconds. Some days he has climbed well, but on others he has looked well off the pace.
His inconsistency was perfectly encapsulated on stage 15, when he failed to follow Contador's breakaway but then launched a superb attack on the final climb of the day and gained 47 seconds on Froome.
Rating: 7/10
Alberto Contador (4th overall, +4min 2sec)
Contador's race had been one to forget up until stage 15. He had crashed, suffered heavy losses on the team time trial and been dropped by Quintana on every mountain-top finish.
But he then issued a reminder of why he is arguably the greatest racer of his generation by initiating one of the most exciting Grand Tour stages in years with his attack on stage 15. Although he ended up losing more time to Quintana, he put himself firmly back in the race for podium places by closing to within five seconds of Chaves and 25 seconds of Froome.
Rating 6/10
Simon Yates (5th overall, +5min 7sec)
Yates is targeting the general classification in a Grand Tour for the first time and, like twin brother Adam at the Tour de France in July, he is making an excellent job of it.
Although a place on the podium looks unlikely, he has bagged a stage win and also produced one of the most impressive attacks of the whole season, when he left the peloton behind with 40km left of stage 14 and went on to make sizeable gains on all the other overall contenders.
Rating: 8/10
