Jonathan Tiernan-Locke closes to within six seconds but cannot topple Colombian climber
Nairo Quintana (Movistar) has emulated his team leader Alejandro Valverde by taking overall victory in the Vuelta a Murcia. The Colombian climber, who took the first stage of the truncated two-day race, lost a number of seconds to his overall rivals, Jonathan Tiernan-Locke (Endura Racing) and Wout Poels (Vacansoleil-DCM) but the 12.3km course was not long enough for them to topple the Movistar rider.
The 12.3km stage was won by Alexander Serov (RusVelo) in a time of 13’46”, just fractions of a second ahead of Quintana’s Movistar teammate Jonathan Castroviejo, and three seconds ahead of Tiernan-Locke’s Endura teammate Alex Wetterhall.
Tiernan-Locke finished 14th, 22 seconds back, while Poels, who started the day just two seconds ahead of him, was 22nd, losing 27 seconds. This meant that the British rider, who has already taken the Tour Méditerranéen and the Tour du Haut-Var this season, moved ahead of the Dutchman in the overall classification.
Quintana finished 27th, and lost 32 seconds, but this was not enough for him to lose the overall lead, and he finished the race six seconds clear.
“I’m really, really happy with taking this overall victory,” said Quintana. “I already said yesterday I could stay into the fight at the time trial and I proved it today.
“I’ve never done specific TT training, but I got to be the national U23 time trial champion in Colombia and I don’t do really bad at them,” he explained. “I knew how to stay calm in the hours after yesterday’s victory, I had some good rest and although the TT route wasn’t in my favour, I was happy this morning after doing the recon because it had no dangerous points.
“I was especially afraid of Poels, but we had the references from my team-mates and I knew I could keep the jersey,” the Colombian continued. “This win is very important, probably as much as the overall in the Tour de l’Avenir, because that one opened the doors and allowed me to come here. This gives me a lot of morale and confidence for the rest of the season. I want to thank everyone from the team for the full support they gave me these two days, and I dedicate this win to my family and God, who helped me very much because being so far from home so much is difficult for me.”