Vuelta a Espana: Tom Dumoulin says victory chances are 'looking good'

Tom Dumoulin is 1min 51sec off the lead with the stage 17 time trial still to come

Tom Dumoulin has admitted his challenge for overall victory at the Vuelta a Espana is "looking good now" after he lost only 27 seconds to the leader on the race's final summit finish on stage 16.

The result leaves the Dutchman 1min 51sec adrift of Joaquim Rodriguez, who replaced Fabio Aru in the red jersey by finishing two seconds ahead of the Italian on the stage.

After Tuesday's rest day, the race resumes on Wednesday with a 38.7km individual time trial on a flat course starting and finishing in Burgos.

Dumoulin is a time trial specialist and should gain time on stage 17

While both Rodriguez and Aru are weak time-triallists, Dumoulin is one of the best in the world and is expected to make significant time gains.

Dumoulin said: "To lose 27 seconds, I think, is really, really good and everything is open.

"It will be very difficult and there will be some hard stages coming up in the next week, but it's looking good now. Everything depends on the time trial."

Dumoulin has surprised even himself with his climbing performances

Dumoulin started the Vuelta strongly but was expected to fall out of contention when the race reached the high mountains in the second week.

He managed to lose only small chunks of time on stage 14 and 15's summit finishes, but he anticipated heavier losses on stage 16's climb to the summit finish at Ermita de Alba, which contains sections in excess of 20 per cent in gradient.

However, the 24-year-old Giant-Alpecin rider once again continued his outstanding form as pure climbers such as Rodriguez and Aru failed to drop him until the final 1km.

Dumoulin out-climbed Chris Froome to win stage nine

He added: "It was really good. It was much better than I expected. I didn't feel so good on the first-category climb. We went really fast, but I was never really in trouble, so I thought, 'We will give it a go on the last climb', and I had really good legs.

"Yesterday I made a mistake. I could have hung on a little bit longer, but I went too quickly. Today I thought, 'When I blow up, I blow up', but I didn't.

"The speed was so high that it wasn't possible to battle against each other, and it was also very steep. I'm really happy."