VIDEO: Chris Froome loses 26 minutes at Catalunya

Team Sky’s GC hopes were dashed on a bad day at the Volta a Catalunya. The British team were caught out by a split in the peloton on the day’s first climb

GC contenders took advantage of a split on the first climb of the day on the Alt de Bot. A gap opened up and Valverde and Contador put the hammer down on the descent open up an even bigger gap.

Team Sky and Chris Froome soon found himself distanced by his GC rivals. Froome and his team-mates were unable to recover and eventually rolled home more than 26 minutes behind stage winner Daryl Impey (Orica-Scott) at the end of Stage 6.

Team Sky sport director Nicolas Portal said: “We made a big mistake. I’m not going to try and make an excuse, there is no excuse. The guys have been brilliant up until today. It looks like it was a positioning issue. The guys weren’t in the top positions on the first descent and this is what can happen."

“It’s a good reminder for us that it can happen to anyone. It’s always bad when it happens, but maybe it’s better to happen here, and we learn from it, than in some of the bigger races we will have this season.”

In the front group Contador attacked with around  27kms to go, but was brought back.

With 9kms to go Cataldo and De Marchi attacked and got a gap. They were caught by the peloton within metres of the line and Daryl Impey from Orica-Scott won the Sprint

BMC Racing's Tejay Van Garderen is in 5th place 1m 24 seconds behind leader Valverde.

2017 Volta a Catalunya Stage 6 Results

1 Daryl Impey (RSA) Orica-Scott 4:34:14 
2 Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Movistar Team   
3 Arthur Vichot (Fra) FDJ   
4 Petr Vakoc (Cze) Quick-Step Floors   
5 Alessandro De Marchi (Ita) BMC Racing Team   
6 Nick Van Der Lijke (Ned) Roompot - Nederlandse Loterij   
7 Dario Cataldo (Ita) Astana Pro Team   
8 Lennard Kämna (Ger) Team Sunweb   
9 Cyril Gautier (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale   
10 Daniel Martin (Irl) Quick-Step Floors

2017 Volta a Catalunya GC after Stage 6

1 Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Movistar Team 22:18:35 
2 Alberto Contador (Spa) Trek-Segafredo 0:00:53 
3 Marc Soler (Spa) Movistar Team 0:01:06 
4 Adam Yates (GBr) Orica-Scott 0:01:21 
5 Tejay Van Garderen (USA) BMC Racing Team 0:01:24 
6 Daniel Martin (Irl) Quick-Step Floors 0:02:19 
7 Steven Kruijswijk (Ned) Team LottoNl-Jumbo 0:02:46 
8 Carlos Verona (Spa) Orica-Scott 0:02:50 
9 George Bennett (NZl) Team LottoNl-Jumbo 0:02:51 
10 Romain Bardet (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale

VIDEO: Volta a Catalunya Stage 6 Final 30 Kilometres