Steven Kruijswijk slipped away from the better climbers and lost his third place in the overall standings today in the Vuelta a España. In stage 17, another summit finish to Balcón de Bizkaia, Team LottoNL-Jumbo's leader lost one minute to his classification rivals. 

In the overall rankings, the Dutchman dropped from third place to fifth. He now sits at 1-48 minutes behind leader Simon Yates.

Just yesterday with a stunning time trial, he had jumped from fifth to third overall. Today, he fell back, however in the battle.

It was a battle on two fronts: a leading group that fought for the stage and behind the overall classification riders. Kruijswijk was well-positioned by his team-mates at the bottom of the steep final climb. The number five of the Tour de France held for a long time, but eventually cracked in the last two kilometres.

"Every day is different. One day you gain time, and another day you lose time. Today I was the one who lost time," Kruijswijk said. 

"It was a very tough final climb. The pace was very high and I was not able to follow in the end. It was very steep, so it was more crawling up the climb than actually riding. In the next days, I will keep fighting until the end and then we will see where we end up. It's not over yet."