Stage 18

The road

How it was won

1. 1129 km to go

   Forty-four kilometres to make a break

   A profile built for an escape, and it takes nearly an hour for one to stick — twelve riders, Gilbert and Chavanel and Siutsou among them.

2. 244 km to go

   The touch of wheels at the foot of the climb

   The road narrows as the peloton reaches Monte Ologno, riders scramble to move up, wheels touch — and Mikel Landa, second overall, is on the floor.

3. 336 km to go

   Contador goes while Landa is down

   The maglia rosa is at the very front when the crash happens behind him, and he does not wait. He attacks the ten-kilometre climb alone, takes two minutes out of a stunned and furious peloton, and does not even stop for a mechanical. The row about whether he should have will run for days.

4. 419 km to go

   Gilbert arrives and leaves

   Nineteen kilometres out the Belgian finally works his way back up to the head of the race — and attacks almost in the same movement, twenty seconds gone in a blink.

5. 5At the line

   Verbania, and a lead extended

   Gilbert cruises in alone for his second stage of this Giro, Bongiorno second, Chavanel third. Behind them Contador and Hesjedal come home with 1:13 taken out of Landa and Aru.

The result