Chris Froome (Team Sky) extended his overall lead at the Vuelta a Espana with a commanding win in the 40.2-kilometre time trial on stage 16. The race leader edged out Wilco Kelderman (Team Sunweb) by 29 seconds with Vincenzo Nibali in third at 57 seconds.
Froome completed the time trial course in a time of 47:00 to buffer his lead over Nibali in the GC to 1:58. Kelderman's performance was enough to edge him ahead of Ilnur Zakarin for a spot on the podium with five stages remaining.
Alberto Contador (Trek Segafredo) finished fifth on the stage and moved up to fifth on GC. There were poor performances from Fabio Aru (Astana) and Esteban Chaves (Orica Scott), who both lost considerable time and fell down the standings. With less than a week of the Vuelta remaining Froome is on course to complete a rare Tour de France and Vuelta double.
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The Team Sky leader looked in control throughout the stage, and although he was slightly down on a handful of riders at the first time check at 13 kilometres, his incessantly consistent pace wore down the likes of Kelderman and Contador – the latter of whom started strongly but was unable to hold back the tide of Froome's dominance in the second half of the test.
Fabio Aru's 26th place, 3:03 down on Froome - effectively ended his podium hopes, while Chaves' 4:01 loss to Froome saw him drop from fifth to ninth in the overall standings.
Nibali – who came into the stage hoping to limit his loses to Froome to around 30 seconds – put in a consistent performance and clawed back time on several rivals in the second half of the race but he conceded time to Froome with every passing kilometre and was forced to settle for a respectable but nevertheless GC-damaging third place. He remains Froome's closest challenger but must hope for a monumental off-day or a mistake from the Team Sky rider in order to win his second Vuelta.
Contador rises as Chaves falls
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