Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) won a dramatic queen stage of the Giro d'Italia, beating Mikel Landa (Team Sky) in a two-up sprint to take Italy's first victory in this year's race. Nairo Quintana (Movistar) finished several seconds down in third place.
Maglia rosa Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) had to battle hard to come back from stomach problems, finishing more than two minutes down and keeping his race lead by just a few seconds.
It was always going to be a day of epic proportions with a veritable feast of ascents for the riders to consume. In the end, it had it all with drama, intrigue and potential scandal. The stage ultimately came down to the last climb and descent of the day with the Umbrailpass the key or the fly in the soup for most of the big favourites.
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Landa and Nibali took different approaches to the stage, with the former making it into the day's main breakaway. Landa had been alone since an attack midway up the Umbrailpass when Nibali joined him on the descent. Nibali himself had launched a few speculative moves to dislodge his companions, which had contained Nairo Quintana, Domenico Pozzovivo and Ilnur Zakarin when he launched his most devastating move with just a kilometre to the summit.
In his usual aggressive style, Nibali caught up with Landa nine kilometres after he'd attacked. The pair stayed to together until to the foot of the descent, marking each other like track sprinters through the twisting, technical finish. As they rounded the final corner, Landa went first but it was Nibali who had the legs to edge out the Spaniard on the line and take the home nation's first win.
"It was a spectacular stage. There was climbing, descending, and then sprinting at the end there against Mikel Landa," Nibali said after the stage. "I didn't think about being first Italian to win a stage; what counted was having a strong team, making a big effort and staying up there. I'm closer now but Dumoulin has the advantage of the time trial in Milan."
How it happened
The Stelvio
Problems for Dumoulin
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