Nairo Quintana is back in the maglia rosa, but is he back to being Nairo Quintana? Only once on this year's Giro d'Italia, on the steepest section of the Blockhaus on stage 9, has the Colombian sparkled like on his best days. That élan has been missing ever since, and yet, 48 hours from Milan, he finds himself on the cusp of winning the Giro for the second time.
At Piancavallo on Friday – as on the Stelvio and during the tappone in the Dolomites – Quintana hardly excelled, but he did enough. It's been the story of his Giro to this point. When maglia rosa Tom Dumoulin (Sunweb) was distanced 11 kilometres from the finish of stage 19 after Movistar's early forcing, one expected Quintana to drive home that advantage with a telling attack, but the onslaught never materialised.
Quintana instead contented himself by tracking an acceleration from Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) 6 kilometres from the summit and riding to the finish in the company of the Sicilian. After putting 1:09 into Dumoulin, Quintana leads the Dutchman by 38 seconds in the general classification, with Nibali a further five seconds back in third.
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When Quintana last rode the Giro three years ago, his domination in the mountains of the final week was absolute. He seemed to climb to places others simply could not reach. His 2017 Giro has, for the most part, been written in prose rather than in poetry. After stage 19, Quintana was asked bluntly if his rivals were stronger than in the past, or if he was simply more tired.
"The level is very, very high. There's very little difference between the riders," Quintana said. "On the top of that, the Stelvio stage the other day was very demanding, and I think everyone is tired as a result of that.
"I was feeling very good today. It was a hard stage, but thanks to my team I managed to get back into the maglia rosa."
Monte Grappa
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