Esteban Chaves (Orica-GreenEdge) tapped into the inspiration of Australian teammate and Paris-Roubaix winner Mat Hayman to fuel his belief that winning the Giro d'Italia is now possible after he claimed victory in Saturday's 14th stage in the Dolomites.
Chaves won the 210km stage from Alpago to Corvara that included six categorized mountains of which five were over 2000m in altitude to move to third place overall going into Sunday's stage 15 mountain time trial.
Chaves won the stage by outsprinting three fellow breakaway companions. In second and third places respectively and at the same time were Dutchman Steven Kruijswijk (Lotto-Jumbo) who became the new overall race leader and Austrian Georg Preidler (Giant-Alpecin). While Colombian Darwin Atapuma (BMC) who had lead the stage alone but was caught by the other three with two kilometres to go, took fourth place but at 6 seconds after fading in the sprint.
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After deposing Costa Rican Andrey Amador (Movistar) from first place overall, Kruijswijk leads the Giro by 41 seconds on Italian Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) who is second despite finishing fifth at 37 seconds on the stage; while Chaves is now third at 1 minute 32 seconds – up from eighth at 2 minutes 19 seconds.
The Mat Hayman influence
After the stage Chaves, who placed fifth overall in last year's Vuelta a Espana, said on RAI Television: "I cannot describe the joy I am experiencing right now."
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