Tom Dumoulin smashes Giro stage ten time trial and takes maglia rosa

Team Sunweb's Tom Dumoulin put a huge claim onto the maglia rosa as he rode one of the best individual time trials of his career, smashing his nearest general classification rivals by nearly three minutes.

Credit: theguardian.com
Dumoulin expertly demonstrated why he's one of the best in the world in time trials and now has a two minute 23 second cushion to Movistar's Nairo Quintana on general classification, while Trek Segafredo's Bauke Mollema moves up to third, FDJ's Thibaut Pinot in fourth and Bahrain-Merida's Vincenzo Nibali in fifth - all within 24 seconds of Quintana.

Dumoulin was calm but happy after the stage: "It's super special. Really happy with today. It was really hard with the wind and I had the feeling I went out a little bit too fast and at the end I was really really suffering, but it was enough. Apparently everyone was suffering because I had quite a gap!"

Coming into the stage there was a suggestion that Dumoulin would be strong enough to take the maglia rosa from Quintana, but no one could have guessed that he'd smash the Colombian's time by nearly three minutes on the lumpy 25-mile course from Foligno to Montefalco.

A battered and bruised Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) came second, 49 seconds down on the Dutchman, to boost his podium chances by moving up to 11th on GC while Bob Jungels (Quick-Step Floors) came third, 56 seconds behind.

"It's a good boost to the confidence, you know", smiled Thomas, "Put time into most of the GC guys but obviously it's a huge handicap now and I lost so much time the other day.

"It still hurts, mentally, to lose the chance of winning or the podium through no fault of my own or another rider. Just got to deal with it, keep fighting and move on."

Luis Leon Sanchez (Astana) and Vasil Kiryienka (Team Sky) finished inside two minutes of the Dutch national champion, while Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida), Maxime Monfort (Lotto-Soudal), Jos Van Emden (Lotto NL-Jumbo), Andrey Amador (Movistar) and Bauke Mollema (Trek Segafredo) came in just over two minutes down.

Stage 11 is very hilly but shouldn't change the general classification too much if at all. The 161km from Firenze to Bagno di Romagna features four categorised climbs and is most likely going to be a day where Jan Polanc (UAE Team Emirates) tries to hang on to his King of the Mountains jersey.

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