Stage 20

The road

At the start

The Finestre, and the last mountains

Contador leads Scarponi by 5:18 and Nibali by 5:52, so second place is thirty-four seconds wide and this is the last day it can move. Today is 244 kilometres to Sestriere, and between here and there is the Colle delle Finestre: eighteen kilometres of climbing with the top eight of them unpaved, and twenty-seven kilometres still to ride from its summit.

How it was won

1. 1144 km to go

   Thirteen for the last mountains

   The final mountain stage of the Giro, 244 kilometres to Sestriere over the Finestre, and thirteen riders are given the front of it. Liquigas start turning the screw behind almost immediately.

2. 234 km to go

   Kiryienka leaves the break

   On the Colle delle Finestre, the gravel and the switchbacks and the thin ledge of crowd, Vasil Kiryienka rides away from his twelve companions as though the climb were a formality.

3. 327 km to go

   Over the Finestre

   Kiryienka crests alone. Behind, Rodriguez attacks with Kruijswijk and Menchov; Scarponi scrambles across; and Nibali, the best descender in the race, comes over the top twenty seconds adrift and dropped, roared at by thousands who can see he is in trouble.

4. 419 km to go

   Nibali comes back down

   He does what he always does. By the bottom of the descent he is not only back on the group, he is leading it, and Scarponi has spent the whole way down waiting for the sound of him arriving.

5. 510 km to go

   Sestriere, and the nerves

   Attacks are launched and parried all the way up the last climb of the race and exactly one rider looks unbothered by any of it. Rodriguez gets away at ten kilometres and Kreuziger cannot follow; Nibali goes and Scarponi answers; Kruijswijk quietly rides himself into the white jersey.

6. 6At the line

   Kiryienka, 4:43

   Kiryienka has been forgotten up front for an hour and wins by 4:43 from Rujano. The result that matters is twenty-two seconds: what Scarponi takes out of Nibali on the last climb of the race to make second place his.

The result