Stage 19

The road

At the start

Alpe di Mera, and a mountain avoided

Two mountain days left, and Bernal still holds it: 2:21 over Caruso and 3:23 over Simon Yates, the only man to have taken time off him. The route no longer climbs the Mottarone — RCS removed it after the cable car there fell last week and killed fourteen people — so the road rises over the Alpe Agogna and the Colma instead, before a first ever finish at the Alpe di Mera.

How it was won

1. 139 km to go

   The break is hunted down

   Deceuninck's furious tempo has already caught Ineos out — Martínez distanced, Ganna sent back to rescue him. Over the Colma, BikeExchange put Nieve on the front and the maglia rosa group strings out.

2. 221 km to go

   Blistering pace onto Alpe di Mera

   Deceuninck take it up one last time at the foot of the final climb with Christian the last survivor of the break. Almeida opens hostilities and Ineos let him have a few seconds.

3. 36 km to go

   Yates attacks

   Less than four hundred metres after Almeida's move, Yates goes — and this is the attack the whole Giro has been waiting for him to make. Bernal does not follow. Within moments the Englishman has thirty seconds and the pink jersey looks genuinely fragile.

4. 45 km to go

   Ineos hold the line

   Castroviejo and Martínez pace Bernal calmly and pick off Dan Martin, Bardet and Carthy one by one. When Martínez finally sits up it is the maglia rosa himself who stamps on the pedals, dropping Caruso.

5. 52 km to go

   Fifteen seconds

   Bernal and Almeida chip away at the lead until, two kilometres out, it is down to fifteen seconds. Yates hangs on.

6. 6At the line

   Alpe di Mera

   Yates wins by eleven seconds from Almeida and takes another 28 out of Bernal — but the Colombian finishes third, limits it, and keeps the jersey with two days left.

The result