Stage 20

The road

At the start

Mortirolo, Stelvio, seventeen seconds

Ryder Hesjedal took thirteen seconds out of Joaquim Rodríguez on the Alpe di Pampeago and now sits seventeen behind him, with Scarponi at 1:39 and Basso at 1:45. Today is the queen stage and the last road stage of the race: over the Tonale and the Aprica, the Mortirolo with fifty kilometres left, and then the Cima Coppi — the Passo dello Stelvio, all the way to the line.

How it was won

1. 1179 km to go

   The fight over the Tonale

   The Passo del Tonale inside the first thirty-five kilometres is where the day's move has to be made, and it is made hard. Whoever gets over this in front has the Mortirolo and the Stelvio to look forward to.

2. 254 km to go

   The Mortirolo empties it out

   The Mortirolo empties the race out. Rabottini, the mountains leader, is spat out of the front group and swallowed by the peloton; Caruso, Vande Velde, Serpa, Zaugg and Amador form the head of it; and near the summit Oliver Zaugg rides away from all of them and stretches it out along the flat before the drop.

3. 340 km to go

   The ceasefire

   Forty kilometres out, with the Stelvio in front of them, the favourites simply stop racing each other. Riders further down on general classification take their chances and jump; Zaugg's lead balloons towards six minutes; Vande Velde is called back from the front group to ride for his captain.

4. 430 km to go

   Zaugg is caught

   Thirty kilometres from the top the chasers finally take Zaugg back, and the flat kilometres between the Mortirolo and the Stelvio are ridden hard enough to start pulling the gap down again.

5. 513 km to go

   De Gendt rides away up the Stelvio

   With sixteen and a half kilometres of climbing left Thomas De Gendt jumps and only Mikel Nieve can follow. Cunego drags himself back onto them with thirteen to go — and De Gendt attacks again immediately, jersey flapping wide open, and neither man can hold him. He is not just winning a stage now: with every hairpin he is climbing the general classification, and inside ten kilometres to go he is five minutes clear and closing on Hesjedal's second place.

6. 6At the line

   The Stelvio, and three men left behind

   De Gendt takes the biggest win of his life on the Cima Coppi, past the snow fields, with Cunego and Nieve behind him. Three minutes back the maglia rosa group has shed everybody: Basso goes, and only Hesjedal, Rodríguez and Scarponi are still together. Rodríguez keeps the pink jersey and takes back on the Stelvio everything Hesjedal took out of him at Pampeago.

The result