Stage 14

The road

At the start

Monte Grappa, and Porte's first mountain

Porte still leads Arroyo by 1:42 and Kiserlovski by 1:56, with Sastre at 7:09 the best placed of the men who came here to win. David Millar abandoned yesterday. Today is the first proper mountain since the Terminillo: 205 kilometres from Ferrara to Asolo, over the finish line once and then out and up Monte Grappa, with a long technical descent back to it. The forecast is wet.

How it was won

1. 179 km to go

   Through Asolo the first time

   The finish town comes and goes with the loop over Monte Grappa still to ride. Lampre and Acqua & Sapone have been driving for an hour and the break's six minutes are visibly going.

2. 252 km to go

   Porte cracks on the Grappa

   Liquigas set a pace on the Grappa that strips the bunch to its bones. Domestiques, sprinters, Gilberto Simoni, and then the maglia rosa: Richie Porte goes out the back with Chris Anker Sorensen for company.

3. 339 km to go

   Basso over the top

   Above the treeline it is wind and rain. Nibali attacks first with Scarponi on him, Evans fights up bringing Basso, and Vinokourov is left to chase with Sastre thirty seconds down. Basso leads the four over the summit.

4. 422 km to go

   Nibali takes the descent

   The road down is new tarmac, wet and technical, and Nibali simply goes. No attack, no look back, just a rider trusting a surface nobody else will. Evans brakes, the gap opens, and it never closes.

5. 5At the line

   Nibali solos to Asolo, Arroyo into pink

   Nibali wins alone by 23 seconds and takes twenty bonus seconds with it; Basso sprints for second and twelve more, Scarponi third for eight. Porte comes in far enough down to lose the jersey, and David Arroyo inherits it.

The result