Fifteen days of fasting before seeing an Italian win a stage of the Giro, but it was worth it after admiring Vincenzo Nibali drawing perfect trajectories in the long dive from the Stelvio on Bormio, detaching Quintana just enough, grabbing and then beating him in the sprint Mikel Landa on the run from the first pass on Cima Coppi.
The Colombian, yesterday more like a lazy local buzzard than a condor of the Andes, finished third 12″ from the Squalo, who will suffer the single dry climb but never disappoints in the big stages with multiple peaks. Fourth was Pozzovivo at 24″. Ten seconds behind the small climber from Basilicata came Ilnur Zakarin who brakes more than necessary on the descent, recalling the bad flight into a torrent of Col dell'Agnello.
About a minute and a half away from Nibali, here is a small group with – in order – Formolo, Mollema, Jungels, Yates, Pinot and Kruijswijk. Practically there was the top ten of the Giro with the exception of the pink jersey which appeared at the finish line when 2'18” had already passed since Nibali's arrival. The classification did not change leaders but he saw two uncomfortable and dangerous customers for the Maastricht Butterfly approaching behind him, enclosed in just 72 seconds: the Condor and the Shark.
What had ever happened to reopen the Giro? More than the Mortirolo and the double Stelvio, it was a sudden stomach ache that forced Dumoulin to stop right in the toughest section of the Umbrail Pass, which is the Swiss route up the Stelvio, to shuffle the games for the final victory.
The pink jersey, seized by excruciating pain, put his foot on the ground and saw the squad of the best go away, who had marked each other up until then, little interested in what was happening ahead where Landa was looking for the company and a victory that would lift morale depressed about all of Team Sky.
Quintana and Nibali neither accelerated nor braked to wait for the victim, as Dumoulin himself had done, in the name of fair play, when Quintana had slipped to the ground in the Bergamo stage. Dumoulin started chasing with a lot of courage and just as much anger, smelling the smell of a conspiracy, but he was no longer able to recover those minutes of rest due to a human physiological need even managing to keep the pink jersey for a handful of seconds.
A miracle if one considers the physical conditions and stage conditions in which the defense of the primacy took place, but the Dutchman's treasure was decidedly reduced: Quintana, although disappointing on the day in which he was expected to attack, presses him just 31″ and Nibali, who is the real rediscovered protagonist of the Giro, jumped onto the podium in third place 1'12” behind the Dutch tulip who understood in Bormio that too much fair-play can cause you to lose the Giro.
