The Italian road race champion Filippo Zana outpaced Thibaut Pinot in a dramatic two-man final sprint in Val di Zoldo on Thursday to clinch his first grand tour win on stage 18 of the Giro d’Italia.
Pinot led the dash for the finish line after a typically swashbuckling performance in the Dolomites, only for Zana to launch the decisive effort from behind, scoring victory on his home roads in the region of Veneto.
In the general classification, Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) moved up to second, 29sec behind Geraint Thomas (Team Ineos), who marked his 37th birthday by ticking off another stage in the maglia rosa, successfully defending his lead against attacks on the attritional final climb from Roglic and teammates.
João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) dropped to third, 39sec behind Thomas, while the Irishman Eddie Dunbar (Jayco AlUla) moved up to fourth, 3min 39sec behind the overall leader. Pinot had the consolation of retaking the lead in the king of the mountains classification.
“It was a decent day,” Thomas said. “To gain time on Almeida and not get dropped by Primoz, it was a good day, a solid day for sure. I felt pretty good, pretty in control. Primoz, he likes to go hard, then take it easy, then go hard. I gave him a few turns, then I wasn’t sure how he was feeling.
“In the last two kilometres he [Roglic] really squeezed on it again, he was super strong, but I was pretty happy with how it was,” Thomas added. “Obviously it’s nice [to gain time] but Primoz had a bad day the other day and Almeida did today. I’ve just got to keep being consistent day by day, climb by climb.”
A furious start to the day had seen a high average speed and numerous attacks but no breakaway was formed until the first of the day’s five categorised climbs, the category-one Passo dello Crosetta. Roglic and Jumbo-Visma worked to control the race before Team Ineos fired things up towards the top and temporarily distanced the Slovenian GC contender.
What was initially a seven-man breakaway had a six-minute advantage around the halfway mark but that was reduced to 4min 25sec when the reduced peloton crested the Forcella Cibiana with 20km remaining.
Warren Barguil (Arkéa–Samsic), Derek Gee and Marco Frigo (Israel–Premier Tech), Aurélien Paret-Peintre (AG2R Citroën) and Davide Gabburo (Green Project–Bardiani–CSF–Faizanè) had also been in the group of escapees, but it was ultimately left to Zana (Jayco AlUla) and Pinot (Groupama–FDJ) to fight it out on the final ascent.
Friday’s stage 19 is a 183km trip from Longarone and Tre Cime di Lavaredo, an even harder day in the mountains, with another five categorised climbs including three category-ones and over 5,000m of climbing.
