Steven Kruijswijk jumped from fifth to third place overall after blasting through the Vuelta a España's 32-kilometre time trial. The Team LottoNL-Jumbo leader rode an impressively strong time trial, finishing fourth at 51 seconds from stage winner Rohan Dennis, but with a healthy advantage on his overall rivals.

With the gains, the Dutchman now sits 52 seconds behind overall leader Simon Yates.

"This is very beautiful," a happy Kruijswijk said. "I had a very good day and I wanted to deliver a good time trial. I knew that on a good day, I could finish in the top ten, but to finish fourth, that is very good and above expectations. 

"The course suited me, but you never know what the competition will do. I started really well, maybe a little too fast, and I was able to ride a steady time trial well. If you finish within a minute from Dennis, you have done very well. In the end, the differences are still quite big. "

With some hard days still to come, Kruijswijk is already looking forward to the remaining stages.

"We are going to take it day by day. We will all give our maximum and then we'll see where we end up on Sunday. So far all is going really well."

The performance surprised Sports Director Grischa Niermann. 

"Steven surprised us all," Niermann said. "Especially, we were happy when he was the fastest at the first checkpoint ahead of Dennis. Then we already knew that it was going to be a very good day for us. 

"He is now third overall and we will do everything to finish on the podium. It is going to be a tough week, but our confidence in Steven and the rest of the team is big."