Stage 17

The road

At the start

Four Dolomite passes to Cortina

Nothing changed at Falzes: Joaquim Rodríguez leads Ryder Hesjedal by thirty seconds, Ivan Basso by 1:22 and Michele Scarponi by 1:36. Today is the stage this Giro has been circling all month — a hundred and eighty-eight kilometres and five thousand three hundred metres of climbing over the Valparola, the Duran and the Staulanza, and then the Passo Giau, seventeen kilometres from Cortina d'Ampezzo.

How it was won

1. 1115 km to go

   The Valparola, and four passes to come

   Four Dolomite passes stand between Falzes and Cortina and the first of them is the Valparola. There is a tension at the start line this morning that nobody bothers to hide; this is the stage the whole race has been circling.

2. 237 km to go

   Staulanza: Kreuziger is the first to crack

   Mikel Nieve catches Seeldraeyers off the front; behind, the group is down to twenty-five and Rodríguez has not a single Katusha team-mate left in it. Roman Kreuziger is the first big name to crack, sliding off the back with the Giau still to come.

3. 325 km to go

   Liquigas detonate the Giau

   The break is swallowed at the foot of the Passo Giau and Liquigas attack immediately. Within minutes the twenty-five are strung across the mountain like laundry on a line, and when the dust settles there are six men left in the Giro d'Italia: Rodríguez, Basso, Hesjedal, Urán, Scarponi and Pozzovivo.

4. 417 km to go

   Pozzovivo attacks the Giau

   Near the summit Pozzovivo attacks the six. Scarponi cramps and drops away with Urán for company; the four in front tip over the top of the Giau and throw themselves at a descent that can win nobody the Giro and could lose it for anybody.

5. 52 km to go

   Six again, two kilometres out

   Scarponi and Urán claw their way back onto the leading four with two kilometres left. On the gentle drag to the line Basso and Scarponi take it in turns to attack, and each time Rodríguez sits behind them and lets them.

6. 6At the line

   Rodríguez, again

   A devastating late burst on a finishing rise that looks like nothing and feels like a wall. A second stage of the race, on the day the Giro went into the Dolomites. Rodriguez keeps thirty seconds on Hesjedal and nothing else: behind those two the standings are wreckage, with Tiralongo, Kreuziger and Casar all thrown out of contention on the Giau.

The result