Nairo Quintana takes lead in Giro as Mikel Landa wins stage 19
Mikel Landa (Team Sky) atoned for two second place finishes in the last three days as the general classification was blown wide open on stage 19 of Giro 100.
Landa earned a well-deserved stage victory at the third time of asking, riding away from Rui Costa (UAE Team Emirates) and Pierre Rolland (Cannondale-Drapac) to claim only his third ever Giro d'Italia win: all of which have come on mountains the great Marco Pantani won on.
Nairo Quintana (Movistar) won back the maglia rosa by 38 seconds but three riders - Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb), Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) and Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) - are less than 55 seconds behind with just one mountain stage and a flat time trial remaining.
Landa said: "I had a teammate in the breakaway and that was key for my win today. I'm very happy, it's not what we expected at the beginning [to be fighting for stage wins rather than GC] but I'm really proud."
"I had bad legs from the start," said a despondent Dumoulin, "And I made a rookie mistake at the beginning to be at the back of the bunch when we went onto the downhill [Sappada] and then Bahrain and Movistar pulled. With my already bad legs I had to go to the max to come back on the middle climb.
Dumoulin continued: "I tried to limit my losses on the final climb and I think I did that really well and luckily the team was really strong today - they saved me a couple of times."
The new maglia rosa, Quintana, said: "We did a really good and fast stage today. In the end, Tom conceded a bit of time. Thanks to my team we took the jersey. Tomorrow's another day and we need to defend really well."
A defeated sounding Nibali said: "This Giro d'Italia is not simple. This is not a Grand Tour that will be won by minutes, in the end the winner will win it by just a few seconds. I'm not sure where I can still take big gains on Tom. The last TT favours him and he's still well in the game and it depends how well he recovers for tomorrow."
The break took 60km to establish itself and it was a large group of 14 riders that took a six and a half minute lead. Movistar once again had sent Andrey Amador and Winner Anacona ahead to potentially bridge Quintana later in the day.
The race was blown wide open just a few kilometres later however, as Dumoulin took a natural break on the descent after the Sappada intermediate sprint, Movistar and Bahrain-Merida attacked. The gap opened to a point where Dumoulin was no longer the pink jersey but Team Sunweb and LottoNL-Jumbo worked hard together for over 20km to bring it back to within 30 seconds. It seemed as though Quintana and Nibali had taken Dumoulin's comments yesterday very personally and decided to have a go back.
Once the race had come back together a new breakaway went up the road - Rui Costa (UAE Team Emirates), Evgeny Shalunov (Gazprom), Luis Leon Sanchez and Pello Bilbao (Astana), Sebastian Henao and KOM Mikel Landa (Team Sky), Ruben Plaza (Movistar), Eros Capecchi (Quick-Step Floors) and Pierre Rolland (Cannondale-Drapac) - and opened a lead of four minutes on the maglia rosa group.
A chasing group - Giovanni Visconti (Bahrain-Merida), Clement Chevrier (AG2R), Nicola Boem and Lorenzo Rota (Bardiani), Rudy Mollard (FDJ) and Jesus Herrarda (Movistar) - forced gap from the peloton on the descent of the Sella Chianzutan and joined the breakaway to make a formidable group of riders that pushed the advantage to eleven minutes.
Sanchez and Molard, both well-known climbers, attacked the leading group inside 20km to go with the clear intention leaving the rest behind on the final climb to Piancavallo.
Sanchez dropped Molard but was joined and swiftly dropped by Costa and Landa as the gradients exceeded 10% up to Piancavallo. Meanwhile, in the peloton, riders were getting tetchy as a Trek Segafredo rider lashed out at Rory Sutherland by throwing a bidon at the Aussie.
The gradient steepened to 14% and Landa left Costa behind, with Rolland chasing. Landa - or 'Landani' as he's nicknamed, after the great Marco Pantani - must have had the failures of the previous stages on his mind, as he widened and widened the gap to over a minute to Costa and Rolland and take his third Giro stage win.
Nine minutes behind the front of the race, Quintana and Nibali attacked with Dumoulin noticeably struggling. The pair managed to take a minute on the Dutchman meaning the top four places behind Quintana are now only separated by 53 seconds - Dumoulin (38"), Nibali (43") and Pinot (53").
Stage 20 - 190km from Pordenone to Asiago - is the final mountains test before the last stage time trial on Sunday. It's a little lumpy in the first half but features two big category one climbs - Monte Grappa and Foza - before a rolling run into the finish. Unless Quintana et al manage to massively crack Dumoulin on the climbs it's very likely the Dutchman will take back the maglia rosa and win the Giro in the time trial.
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| Credit: cyclingnews.com |
Nairo Quintana (Movistar) won back the maglia rosa by 38 seconds but three riders - Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb), Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) and Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) - are less than 55 seconds behind with just one mountain stage and a flat time trial remaining.
Landa said: "I had a teammate in the breakaway and that was key for my win today. I'm very happy, it's not what we expected at the beginning [to be fighting for stage wins rather than GC] but I'm really proud."
"I had bad legs from the start," said a despondent Dumoulin, "And I made a rookie mistake at the beginning to be at the back of the bunch when we went onto the downhill [Sappada] and then Bahrain and Movistar pulled. With my already bad legs I had to go to the max to come back on the middle climb.
Dumoulin continued: "I tried to limit my losses on the final climb and I think I did that really well and luckily the team was really strong today - they saved me a couple of times."
The new maglia rosa, Quintana, said: "We did a really good and fast stage today. In the end, Tom conceded a bit of time. Thanks to my team we took the jersey. Tomorrow's another day and we need to defend really well."
A defeated sounding Nibali said: "This Giro d'Italia is not simple. This is not a Grand Tour that will be won by minutes, in the end the winner will win it by just a few seconds. I'm not sure where I can still take big gains on Tom. The last TT favours him and he's still well in the game and it depends how well he recovers for tomorrow."
The break took 60km to establish itself and it was a large group of 14 riders that took a six and a half minute lead. Movistar once again had sent Andrey Amador and Winner Anacona ahead to potentially bridge Quintana later in the day.
The race was blown wide open just a few kilometres later however, as Dumoulin took a natural break on the descent after the Sappada intermediate sprint, Movistar and Bahrain-Merida attacked. The gap opened to a point where Dumoulin was no longer the pink jersey but Team Sunweb and LottoNL-Jumbo worked hard together for over 20km to bring it back to within 30 seconds. It seemed as though Quintana and Nibali had taken Dumoulin's comments yesterday very personally and decided to have a go back.
Once the race had come back together a new breakaway went up the road - Rui Costa (UAE Team Emirates), Evgeny Shalunov (Gazprom), Luis Leon Sanchez and Pello Bilbao (Astana), Sebastian Henao and KOM Mikel Landa (Team Sky), Ruben Plaza (Movistar), Eros Capecchi (Quick-Step Floors) and Pierre Rolland (Cannondale-Drapac) - and opened a lead of four minutes on the maglia rosa group.
A chasing group - Giovanni Visconti (Bahrain-Merida), Clement Chevrier (AG2R), Nicola Boem and Lorenzo Rota (Bardiani), Rudy Mollard (FDJ) and Jesus Herrarda (Movistar) - forced gap from the peloton on the descent of the Sella Chianzutan and joined the breakaway to make a formidable group of riders that pushed the advantage to eleven minutes.
Sanchez and Molard, both well-known climbers, attacked the leading group inside 20km to go with the clear intention leaving the rest behind on the final climb to Piancavallo.
Sanchez dropped Molard but was joined and swiftly dropped by Costa and Landa as the gradients exceeded 10% up to Piancavallo. Meanwhile, in the peloton, riders were getting tetchy as a Trek Segafredo rider lashed out at Rory Sutherland by throwing a bidon at the Aussie.
The gradient steepened to 14% and Landa left Costa behind, with Rolland chasing. Landa - or 'Landani' as he's nicknamed, after the great Marco Pantani - must have had the failures of the previous stages on his mind, as he widened and widened the gap to over a minute to Costa and Rolland and take his third Giro stage win.
Nine minutes behind the front of the race, Quintana and Nibali attacked with Dumoulin noticeably struggling. The pair managed to take a minute on the Dutchman meaning the top four places behind Quintana are now only separated by 53 seconds - Dumoulin (38"), Nibali (43") and Pinot (53").
Stage 20 - 190km from Pordenone to Asiago - is the final mountains test before the last stage time trial on Sunday. It's a little lumpy in the first half but features two big category one climbs - Monte Grappa and Foza - before a rolling run into the finish. Unless Quintana et al manage to massively crack Dumoulin on the climbs it's very likely the Dutchman will take back the maglia rosa and win the Giro in the time trial.
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