Stage 14

The road

At the start

Into the Alps, in the rain

Nibali leads Evans by forty-one seconds and Urán by 2:04, and twenty riders have already left the race, Wiggins and Hesjedal among six who went home yesterday morning. Today the Giro climbs for the first time in a week: out of the plain at Cervere and up to Bardonecchia and the Jafferau. It has been raining since dawn, and the Sestriere is in doubt.

How it was won

1. 1154 km to go

   Seven go, and the Sestriere goes

   It has been raining since the flag dropped, and the weather has already cost the stage its Sestriere: the organisers have struck the col out. Fourteen kilometres in, seven riders leave anyway — Martínez, Weening, Paolini, Stetina, Pietropolli, Colbrelli and Trentin.

2. 297 km to go

   Astana are not interested

   The maglia rosa's team declines to chase and the gap simply grows: nine minutes, then close to ten. Cannondale, Androni and Sky eventually come to the front, and even then it falls only slowly.

3. 313 km to go

   The mountain starts taking it back

   Sky set a pace on the long final climb that cuts the field to thirty or forty riders and the leaders' cushion to 5:35. Trentin has been suffering for a while; a puncture ends what was left of his day.

4. 48 km to go

   Sky send Henao, not Urán

   It is Sergio Henao who goes up the road for Sky, marked immediately by Androni's Diego Rosa. Pellizotti has already tried and failed. The fog that lifted off the finish line earlier comes rolling back down to meet them.

5. 5At the line

   Out of the fog, two riders

   Four hundred metres out a shape appears: Mauro Santambrogio, with Vincenzo Nibali on his wheel, the maglia rosa having jumped out of the chase three kilometres earlier and taken the Italian with him. Santambrogio crosses first and Nibali does not contest it, taking the bonus seconds instead. Santambrogio is later found positive for EPO and struck from the result; the stage stands to Nibali.

The result