It appeared that Team Sky were going to suffer another disappointing Giro d’Italia when Mikel Landa was forced to abandon at the start of the second week. However, last-minute addition Mikel Nieve salvaged the race with victory in the mountains classification and a stage win.
Nieve was brought into the line-up just a few weeks before the race began when Sergio Henao was provisionally suspended while the UCI investigate the Colombian’s biological passport. Nieve admits that he struggled at first but found his form once the race hit the mountains. “[It is] indescribable. I will savour it and enjoy it. I take pride in my Giro d’Italia,” he told AS.
“I got more than I could have imagined, my second stage victory in the Giro and the mountains classification. For a climber like me it means that you’ve achieved a great level, it has given me a lot of hope. I started a little short of form and, in the first week, I took things calmly, and I put myself out front in the last two weeks when Sky needed me to.”
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Team Sky had gone into the Giro d’Italia with probably one of their clearest cut chances of taking home the maglia rosa. While Landa didn’t look on top of his game yet, it had been going well throughout the first week and a strong performance in the time trial had set him up nicely for the mountains. However, things began to unravel for Landa and his team following the second rest day when the 26-year-old was dropped on a medium mountain stage.
Nieve and fellow Spaniard David Lopez hung back to help their leader but, sick and more than six minutes behind, Landa eventually climbed off his bike and into the team car. Nieve and Lopez then had the long and lonely journey to the finish of the stage, where they would eventually cross the line in a small group more than 37 minutes behind the winner. The time loss would work in Nieve’s favour in the coming days as he took his own chances.
Three days after his leader’s abandon, Nieve got into a break and stormed to a solo victory in the Dolomites on stage 13, the same mountain range that played host to his first Giro d’Italia victory. The result would also shoot him up to fourth in the mountains classification, and he would continue to edge ever nearer with two strong performances in the final mountain stages of the race.
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