Stage 16

The road

At the start

The queen stage, minus two passes

Snow on the high roads has taken the giants out of the Giro's biggest day overnight: the Fedaia and the Pordoi are gone, the Cima Coppi with them, and 212 kilometres have become 153. Bernal starts 1:33 clear of Simon Yates and 1:51 of Caruso, with Buchmann among five who abandoned yesterday. What survives is La Crosetta, the Passo Giau, and a long wet descent.

How it was won

1. 1127 km to go

   The queen stage, cut in half

   Snow and freezing rain have stripped 60 kilometres and two great passes out of the route overnight. What remains still climbs La Crosetta before the Giau, and the weather is about to take the television pictures with it.

2. 239 km to go

   The bunch splits at Capile

   Van Garderen pushes so hard on the run to the second intermediate that the peloton briefly comes apart, and the gap to the leaders drops under three minutes with the Giau looming.

3. 318 km to go

   Bernal alone on the Passo Giau

   Ten kilometres at 9.3 per cent, and after one kilometre there are eight riders left in what used to be the peloton. When Carr's turn ends, Bernal launches a vicious seated acceleration that nobody holds — Carthy briefly, then nothing. He rides straight through Nibali, Formolo, Almeida and Pedrero and out the top of the race, alone in the cloud, with the television transmitters dead and Italy watching a blank screen.

4. 49 km to go

   Seventeen kilometres of wet descending

   The rain has eased but the road is still treacherous and Bernal, in pink and with everything to lose, takes no risks. Caruso claws back to within thirty seconds; Bardet joins him.

5. 5At the line

   Cortina d'Ampezzo

   Bernal wins the queen stage and tightens his grip on the race. Only Yates fails to limit the damage — and he is the one man who will make Bernal suffer later.

The result