Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNl-Jumbo) openly declared his love for the Giro d'Italia as he was rewarded with his first-ever maglia rosa on stage 14 in Corvara and a huge boost in his confidence after he and Esteban Chaves (Orica-GreenEdge) showed they were by far the strongest riders of the stage.
Kruijswijk and Chaves managed to gain time on all their overall riders after attacking with Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) on the final Passo Valparola climb. They then distanced the Italian enough so that Kruijswijk jumped to the top of the general classification and took the maglia rosa. All their rivals lost even more time, with Alejandro Valverde and Andrey Amador (Movistar) the big losers. They slipped to more than three minutes back as the Giro d'Italia underwent a seismic shift.
Kruijswijk now leads Nibali by 41 seconds, with Chaves at 1:32 and Valverde at 3:06. Amador, Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha) and Rigoberto Uran (Canondale) are even further back.
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"In the end it's a wonderful day for me. I was dreaming of the pink jersey and today it happened. I'm really happy to be in this position," said the level-headed, red head from Nuenen in the post-race press conference.
"This is my sixth Giro d'Italia, my first was when I was a neo pro and ever since then, I loved this race and this style of racing. It's difficult every year but it's a special race."
Kruijswijk lost 8:27 on the rolling road to La Spezia last year but recovered so well in the final week that he finished in eighth place on general classification, 10:53 behind the pink jersey of Alberto Contador, but less than eight minutes off a place on the final podium. He also impressed on the tough stage over the Mortirolo, as he rode with Contador to distance Fabio Aru.
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