Froome’s hope of bagging the vuelta a Espana has been dashed as the cyclist faced a serious loss in a race won by Nairo Quintana.

The sportsman from team sky was able to hang on to the second position in the overall classification but lost out on the first place to Quintana.

The result of the race leaves him adrift of Nairo by 3 minutes and 37 seconds. The sprint attack during the race was launched by fellow cyclist Alberto Contador at about 6km into the 118.5km race and Nairo Quintana was among the first of the 14 riders who reacted quick enough to follow the pace.

Even before the outing, Chris Froome had admitted early enough saying, beating Nairo Quintana will be extremely difficult. As the attack from Contador progressed, Froome’s teammates made good effort in trying to catch up but their advances proved futile.

They were unable to breach the gap between themselves and the break away and the time lag grew steadily as the race progressed to 3 minutes. For a little while, the Britons seemed to improve their prospects as a good pace was suddenly set by Astana.

This brought about a reduction in the time deficit to two minutes, but the brit was having a bad day as Froome looked drained and devoid of his usual drive as he made the acsent, and the recovered gap grew out again.

At the end of the race, winner; Quintana described his lead over Froome as a big difference. Froome, in the spirit of good sport mans ship held up his hand and applauded his rival who had put up a better performance than him. While Froome may have not been able to make history at the vuelta a Espana, he definitely cannot be faulted for lack of trying.