Froome 'surviving' at Vuelta a Espana

The Vuelta's first mountaintop finish of this year's race came on Saturday and Froome lost 33 seconds to Nairo Quintana, eight seconds to Alberto Contador but crossed the line in the same time as Alejandro Valverde – his three main rivals for overall glory.

Movistar's Quintana took the leader's red jersey from fellow Colombian Darwin Atapuma with team-mate Valverde in second place, 19 seconds adrift, and Froome 27 seconds back in third.

However, the Brit holds a handy 72-second advantage over Contador following stage eight – which was won by Sergey Lagutin of Uzbekistan – and isn't too downbeat about trailing the Movistar duo in the overall standings.

"It was a tough climb, and Nairo showed he was in good condition, so chapeau to him," said Froome. "I think Movistar is going to be the team to go up against and this race.

"Alberto did great too, particularly after yesterday's crash. That shows he's a fighter. As for myself – I'm surviving.

"I did lose a little bit of time but I'm still in there. It's still early days in the race and there's still a lot to fight for. All in all, I'm still pretty happy with where I'm at.

"There's still a lot of racing to come like the time trial on stage 18 which should suit me very well. Apart from that, it's for Movistar to control the race now."

Sportsbeat 2016