Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) pulled off what seemed impossible just a few days ago and all but won the Giro d’Italia with a devastating performance on the final mountain stage.
The Italian started stage 20 to Sant'Anna di Vinadio 44 seconds down on maglia rosa Esteban Chaves (Orica-GreenEdge) but made up the deficit on the penultimate climb with a long-range attack after cracking all his major rivals, including the Colombian.
Rein Taaramae (Team Katusha) won the stage after surviving from the day’s early break, the Estonian somewhat making up for the fact that his team leader Ilnur Zakarin crashed out 24 hours previously.
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The day, and ultimately the maglia rosa, belongs to Nibali, who came into the final mountain stages almost five minutes in arrears. He cut that to under a minute after winning stage 19 but on the penultimate stage before Turin’s flat encounter, he still had to crack Chaves, who had inherited pink after Steven Kruijswijk's (Team LottoNl-Jumbo) untimely stage 19 crash.
And Nibali pulled it off, first having his team set a near-relentless pace on the Colle della Lombarda, before attacking himself with two brutal accelerations. The first could only be matched by Chaves and Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) but the second, while seated and with Chaves on his wheel, broke the Colombian’s brave resistance.
With constant time checks coming through the radio and with Tanel Kangert - who had been called back from the early break - for company Nibali slowly but surely opened a significant gap.
Watch Giro d'Italia stage 20 video highlights
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