Chris Froome suffers blow on Vuelta’s first real mountain stage

Tour de France champion Chris Froome suffered a blow in his bid to add the Vuelta a Espana title on Friday's seventh stage to La Alpujarra.

The 30-year-old Team Sky leader finished one minute and three seconds behind stage winner Bert-Jan Lindeman (Lotto-Jumbo) on the first real mountain test of the Tour of Spain.

Froome fell to 1min 22secs behind Esteban Chaves (Orica-GreenEdge), who retained the race leader's red jersey.

Chaves was sixth on the stage as Lindeman won ahead of Ilia Koshevoy (Lampre-Merida).

Nicolas Roche finished in 10th spot, just ahead of his cousin Dan Martin, both timed at 36 seconds behind the winner. Martin remains in third spot overall , 33 seconds behind Chaves, with Roche fourth overall, 36 seconds down on the race leader. Tom Dumoulin of Giant-Alpecin is in second spot on GC, 10 seconds down on Chaves.

Froome and Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing) lost contact in the final two kilometres of the 191km stage from Jodar.

Froome conceded 27seconds to the Chaves group by the stage finish.

Fabio Aru (Astana) was the main beneficiary on the day, accelerating out of the group of general classification contenders and finishing third, seven seconds ahead of his rivals.