Stage 14

The road

At the start

Turin, Superga and the Maddalena twice

The shortest stage of the Giro and one of the meanest: 147 kilometres around Turin with two ascents each of the Superga and the Colle della Maddalena, which ramps to twenty per cent through the forest. Juan Pedro López has worn pink for ten days and leads Richard Carapaz and João Almeida by twelve seconds, Jai Hindley by twenty. Romain Bardet abandoned yesterday, ill. Somebody has to move today.

How it was won

1. 1104 km to go

   Dumoulin steps off

   Sixty kilometres of relentless attacking finally tell. At the top of il Pilonetto the 2017 champion, rumoured to be struggling with his back, climbs off and abandons the Giro.

2. 264 km to go

   Bora blow the race apart

   A twelve-man move had built forty seconds off il Pilonetto's descent. Kelderman, Buchmann and Hindley demolish it — and the peloton with it — by the time they reach the Superga for the first time.

3. 328 km to go

   Carapaz throws the dice

   Kelderman pulls off and Hindley attacks the lower slopes; Nibali senses tiredness and puts Landa, Hirt, Pozzovivo and Bilbao on the back foot. López finally cracks and rides out of the maglia rosa. Then, just before the top, Carapaz launches a risky, beautiful attack and crests twenty seconds clear — the pink jersey his on the road, but a strong chase group behind and nearly thirty kilometres still to run.

4. 412 km to go

   The Shark hunts him down

   Nibali goes after Carapaz on the steepest section of the Colle della Maddalena and takes Hindley with him. Hindley springboards off the Italian's wheel and is first to make the junction, with Yates arriving too — four leaders, thirteen seconds up on Almeida and Pozzovivo, starting the descent to Turin.

5. 55 km to go

   Yates jumps at the sprint point

   Five kilometres out, at the intermediate, Simon Yates springs the four-man group and instantly finds fifteen seconds. Nobody organises quickly enough behind, and a Giro that fell apart for him on Blockhaus hands him a consolation.

6. 6At the line

   Solo in Turin

   He holds every one of those fifteen seconds to the line. Behind him Carapaz has taken the maglia rosa off López's back after the most frantic day of the race so far.

The result