Nairo Quintana (Movistar) tried to see the glass half-full after the stage 16 time trial at the Vuelta a Espaņa, though his eagerness to move on and look ahead perhaps betrayed how bruising a day it had been for the Colombian, who slipped out of the podium places. `Now the mountains are coming,` Quintana said repeatedly after wheeling to a halt beyond the finish line on the velodrome of the Oscar Freire sports complex. The problem is that they now must appear significantly steeper than they did before.ADVERTISEMENT Quintana started the day third overall, 33 seconds down on race leader Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott), but conceded 42 seconds to the Briton on the undulating 32km course in Cantabria. Even if the 35 seconds he lost to teammate Alejandro Valverde might have been less than expected, fuel has still been added to the flames of the Movistar leadership dilemma, with 42 seconds now separating the pair. What`s more, Quintana slipped off the provisional podium at the hands of Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNL-Jumbo), who finished fourth on the stage to move 23 seconds ahead of the Colombian. `I knew I was going to lose time,` Quintana told reporters. `It was a course for the pure rouleurs, so in the circumstances, with my characteristics, I defended myself pretty well.`
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