Cycling: Chris Froome admits it will be “extremely tough” to win the Vuelta

Colombian rider Nairo Quintana from Team Movistar now has a very strong grip on the red jersey at the Tour of Spain after Sunday's stage 15. The stage was short and mountainous, an ideal setting for audacious attacks, and that is exactly what Quintana along with Alberto Contador did. Chris Froome and his team-mates from Sky failed to join the 15-man breakaway early on and the Tour de France winner ended up 3 minutes and 37 seconds behind Quintana at the end of the day. There are three more opportunities for Froome to erase some of that deficit: two summit finishes and the individual time trial on a route that is 37km long. However, the Team Sky leader admits it would be nearly impossible. He said after Sunday's stage: "It's definitely made it a lot more hard now. A minute was manageable; three minutes is going to be extremely tough. But stranger things have happened and we're going to keep fighting all the way." "It was a tough stage for us, obviously. The guys did a lot of work yesterday, so we weren't as prepared as some of the other teams this morning," Froome added. "Obviously, getting caught out there with Contador and Quintana in that early break, that put us on the back foot and we just never recovered. Credit to them. They rode a really smart race and they have gained a lot of time today on us." Froome now has his second place to worry about as well as Esteban Chaves is just 20 seconds behind him in third spot. The British rider is now 13/2 at Bet365 to win the Tour of Spain.