Stage 18

The road

At the start

Bergamo Alta and the Passo di Ganda

Contador leads Scarponi by 4:58 and Nibali by 5:45, and behind them Siutsou has climbed back to fifth. Today is 152 kilometres from Morbegno to San Pellegrino Terme, with the cobbled climb into Bergamo's old city a hundred kilometres in, the Passo di Ganda after it, and thirty kilometres of descent and valley to the line. Lombardy roads, on Lombardy's kind of day.

How it was won

1. 159 km to go

   Deignan lights Bergamo Alta

   A hundred kilometres covered at a lung-burning pace, and then the cobbled climb into the old city. Philip Deignan drives it through the narrow streets, and when he turns round at the top there are twenty riders on his wheel and a confused peloton behind them.

2. 230 km to go

   Capecchi drives the Ganda

   Eros Capecchi takes the lion's share of the work up the second-category climb and it dislodges Downing, Pineau and then Brambilla. Pinotti and Seeldraeyers refuse to be shaken, and thirty kilometres out three men have the stage. Behind them Nibali looks at the descent, looks at Contador, and lets it be.

3. 310 km to go

   Two monster turns

   As the roads widen in the valley Capecchi puts in a pair of turns so long that Brambilla and Tiralongo, chasing behind, stop believing. Pinotti, riding on his home roads, keeps taking his share anyway.

4. 4At the line

   San Pellegrino Terme

   Pinotti gambles on leading it out under the red kite with Seeldraeyers glued to him, and Capecchi is about to be squeezed into the barriers. On the last left-hander at 200 metres he noses into the gap between them instead, and from there it is a formality.

The result