Giro d’Italia Stage 20: Pinot takes stage, Quintana retains lead, but Dumoulin still poised

Nairo Quintana (Movistar) will take an advantage of 39 seconds into the Giro d’Italia’s decisive final time trial after a highly entertaining stage won by Thibaut Pinot (FDJ). Tom Dumoulin (Sunweb) has slipped to fourth overall, but remains well poised, just 53 seconds adrift.

Quintana started the day with a 38-second advantage over Dumoulin but would have been keen to increase that margin given the Dutchman’s ability against the clock. Nor was Dumoulin the Colombian’s only concern with the top six riders on the general classification separated by just 1m30s.

The first meaningful attack of the stage came from Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) on the final climb of the day with around 25km to go. The increase in pace saw gaps open and Tom Dumoulin distanced. However, the Dutchman maintained his own pace and soon regained contact.

Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha) was next to go and Domenico Pozzovivo (AG2R) was the only rider to follow.

Further up the climb, Quintana attacked. He joined forces with Nibali and the two were then joined by Pinot. Those three worked together to distance Dumoulin and at the summit had created a gap of around 20 seconds.

Given their ability on the descents, it wasn’t too surprising when Zakarin and Pozzovivo were caught soon after and those five riders stayed together to the finish.

Pinot took the sprint and 10 valuable bonus seconds, with Zakarin second and Nibali third.

The Dumoulin group finished 15 seconds later and the Dutchman will have high hopes of winning the overall given his clear superiority in the Stage 10 time trial.

In terms of the other classifications, Fernando Gaviria (Quick Step) had long since sewn up the points, while Mikel Landa’s (Sky) efforts this week secured him the mountains. However, the young rider’s white jersey is still on the line.

Britain’s Adam Yates (Orica-Scott) leads Bob Jungels (Quick Step) by 28 seconds, but the Luxembourg rider has the greater time trial pedigree, beating Yates by 1m35s on Stage 10.

Pinot said: “Until 3km to go I only thought of gaining time, but in the last 3km I really had the stage win in mind. It's not easy to win a stage when racing for GC and this was my last opportunity. However it's not enough to have gained 25 seconds on Tom Dumoulin. Tomorrow's time trial suits him really well but I'll do my best to limit the losses and get the best possible final result.”

Race leader Quintana said: “I'm happy with today's stage. We have had a good fight with the other rivals. It was important not to lose any time on them but I also wanted to gain some. I didn't gain as much as I wanted onto Tom [Dumoulin] but there was nothing more we could do today. Now we'll play all our cards flat out tomorrow.”