Stage 18

The road

At the start

The longest stage, and a cobbled wall

Nothing at the top has moved for two days: Kruijswijk leads Chaves by three minutes, Valverde by 3:23, Nibali by 4:43. Today is the longest stage of the Giro, 240 kilometres to Pinerolo, and it saves everything for the end — the Pramartino, 4.6 kilometres with ramps at seventeen per cent, and then a savage little cobbled climb that the profile does not even show.

How it was won

1. 1222 km to go

   Twenty-three up the road

   The longest stage of the race has last-chance-saloon written all over it, and a huge move goes: Trentin, Brambilla, Moser, Küng, Oss, Arndt, Modolo, Mohorič and more. Once the gap is set, LottoNL-Jumbo settle the bunch.

2. 220 km to go

   Trentin lights the Pramartino

   Only 4.6 kilometres long but with ramps of 17 per cent, the climb is made for it. Trentin splits the break, and it is Brambilla and Moser who go clear — with Trentin himself dropped and 28 seconds down at the summit.

3. 36 km to go

   Savage blows on the last ramp

   Brambilla and Moser trade attack for attack on the short uncategorised climb before Pinerolo, neither able to shake the other — and neither noticing the Etixx rider silently closing behind them.

4. 4At the line

   The wrong Etixx rider

   With 500 metres left Matteo Trentin blows past his own teammate and a forlorn Moreno Moser, who can only double-take as a blue jersey goes by — just not the one he had been watching all afternoon.

The result