For a moment on the sinuous descent of the Miragolo San Salvatore, it looked as though Nairo Quintana (Movistar) faced graver problems at this Giro d'Italia than his hefty deficit to Tom Dumoulin (Sunweb) in the overall standings.
35 kilometres from the finish of stage 15 in Bergamo, Quintana overshot a sweeping right bend and rode directly into the crash barrier on the roadside. By the time he had remounted unsteadily on the bike of a teammate, the maglia rosa group had disappeared from view, and Quintana braced himself for a frantic chase in the company of Andrey Amador and Winner Anacona.
His expression as impassive as ever, Quintana was a picture of calm even when he had to pause to change onto his spare bike at the base of the final climb, the Selvino, though at that point, he had little idea that Dumoulin had, as padrone of this Giro, come to the head of the group of favourites and called a truce until the Colombian latched back on.
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A fraught finale saw first Bob Jungels (Quick-Step) and then Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) force the issue on the steep, narrow climb through Bergamo Alta, and continue their efforts on the white-knuckle drop to the finish that followed. If Quintana was discommoded by his crash, it hardly showed. He was safely among the 12-man leading group that formed in the closing kilometres and sprinted to a defiant second place on the stage behind Jungels for good measure.
"I was a bit shook up by the crash, but I managed to get back onto the peloton and finish with my rivals so it went well in the end," Quintana said after pausing in the shade of a side-street by the finish area, to the relief of the small group of reporters that had been jogging in his wake. "We overcame a difficult moment with the crash, and it was a day made complicated by those descents and the narrow road on the last climb.
"At first when I set off again after the crash, I was on the bike of a teammate, but after the descent, we decided to stop so I could get back on my own bike. In the end, the guys brought me back up to the peloton without complications."
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