Stage 15

The road

At the start

Over the border, to the Galibier

Nibali took yesterday's finish out of the fog and now leads Evans by 1:26 and Urán by 2:46, with Mauro Santambrogio one second behind Urán. Seven more riders have gone, David Millar among them. Today the Giro crosses into France for Mont Cenis, then the Télégraphe, then the Col du Galibier — where it is snowing, and where the finish has already been moved four kilometres down the mountain.

How it was won

1. 186 km to go

   A truce, until Mont Cenis

   It is cold enough that the finish has already been moved four kilometres down the Galibier, and cold enough that the peloton agrees not to race until the top of Mont Cenis is nearly in sight. Then Pirazzi and Chalapud go for the mountain points, and the day begins.

2. 255 km to go

   Six minutes down the valley

   Visconti, Weening, Rabottini and Longo Borghini catch the two leaders on the descent and the whole group commits to the valley run. By the foot of the Télégraphe their advantage is close to six minutes, and nobody behind seems minded to argue with it.

3. 319 km to go

   Visconti answers on the Télégraphe

   Weening tries hard to break the group on the climb, and Rabottini and Visconti bring him back. Then the Italian attacks himself, and this one holds: forty-two seconds at the summit, a plunge into Valloire, and thirteen kilometres of Galibier waiting on the far side.

4. 45 km to go

   Nobody can move in the cold

   Astana never lose hold of the maglia rosa group. Gesink is allowed to go, then Martínez, Kiserlovski and Henao; all of them are reeled back in. Samuel Sánchez attacks with five kilometres left and comes back too. Nibali tries once himself, and finds the same wall of frozen legs everybody else has found.

5. 5At the line

   Snow at the Pantani monument

   Giovanni Visconti climbs the last of the Galibier alone through falling snow and finishes beside the monument to Marco Pantani, a minute clear of everything behind him — the best win of a hard year, on a mountain that gives them away rarely. In the final kilometre four riders slip off the front of the Nibali group, and Betancur's twelve bonus seconds take the white jersey off Majka.

The result