Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) moved into the lead of the Vuelta a España as former red jersey Nairo Quintana (Movistar) dropped out of the top ten after crashing midway through a technical stage 10 time trial.

The stage honours went to Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-Quickstep), with Martin’s teammate Rigoberto Uran and Fabian Cancellara (Trek Factory Racing) completing the podium.

With only 30 seconds separating the top six at the first rest day, today’s 36.5km time trial was a chance for the stronger riders to open up some bigger gaps at the top of GC.

However the stage win would be decided among those further down GC, and world time trial champion Tony Martin duly delivered, setting the fastest time of the day as he powered through the flatter final 20km of the stage to come home in a time of 47:02.

After struggling on the summit finishes of the first week, the cameras rarely dwelled on Rigoberto Uran, but the Colombian put in the sort of time trial performance which saw him take a win against the clock in the Giro d’Italia, finish, conceding only 15 seconds to Martin. The time would be good enough for second on the day, and move Uran up to third on GC.

Chris Froome (Team Sky) was expected to excel against the clock, but seemed to struggle on the inconsistent gradient and uneven road surface of the only climb of the stage, moving in an out of the saddle in contrast to his typical fixed poise on the TT bars.

In contrast Alberto Contador seemed at ease dancing up the climb to pass through the first intermediate time check at the head of the field, seven seconds faster than Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) and 21 seconds up on Quintana.

Then came the day’s moment of drama. Reaching down to adjust his shoes as he began the descent, Quintana appeared to lose concentration, and as a right-hand corner tightened, the red jersey of the Colombian was pushed outwards, colliding with the crash barriers and flipping over his bars.

The Colombian was clearly dazed as he rested on the barriers for a good two minutes as the team doctor checked him over, before nervously remounting to complete his ride.

Quintana eventually rolled home 4:07 behind Tony Martin, while Contador continued to fly through the second half of the course. The Tinkoff-Saxo rider finished in fourth place 39 seconds in arrears to take the leader’s read jersey by 27 seconds ahead of Alejandro Valverde.

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