They had said all along that the road would decide who would be the leader of the Movistar Team, and in the end it did. As the tarmac turned to concrete just under four kilometres from the top of the Monte Oiz on stage 17 of the Vuelta a Espaņa, Nairo Quintana quietly lost contact with the group of overall contenders. He would only slip further back as the gradients reached infernal levels and, with that, the debate which had been simmering since the start of the Vuelta, evaporated into the mist that shrouded the Basque mountain. Quintana eventually finished 1:04 down on his teammate Alejandro Valverde, who became top dog not merely by default but by asserting himself and putting eight seconds back into overall leader Simon Yates to keep his hopes of a second Vuelta title very much alive. After wheeling to a halt on the mountainside, Quintana refused to make excuses for his disappointing display.ADVERTISEMENT `I didn`t have any strength left,` he said simply. `I`m not going to make up lies and say that I`m ill or anything. I feel OK but there was no strength left. `The climb started fast, and I was struggling to hold the wheel. I dug in and dug in but then I couldn`t hold on any longer.` The stage 16 time trial had seen Valverde move 42 seconds clear of Quintana, but that was not enough to definitively establish as the Spaniard as the sole leader. The complexion on Monte Oiz, despite the poor visibility, was rather more clear.
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