2017 Giro d'Italia Stage 18 Results & Recap
Stage 18 of the 2017 Giro d'Italia is in the books. The final results and standings are below, followed by our recap of how the race unfolded.
Race Recap
Van Garderen wins 18th Giro stage
Dumoulin retains pink jersey
Tejay van Garderen won his first grand tour stage after spending the day in the breakaway. The American BMC rider took victory ahead of Mikel Landa (Team Sky) while Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) finished third, eight seconds back.
“I was looking for GC, but for some reason my legs weren’t responding early in the race,” van Garderen said. “It was frustrating, I would have liked to have raced for GC. But winning this stage is still an amazing feeling and I’m happy to take something out of this Giro.”
Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) finished safely with his closest rivals to protect his pink jersey. Despite having no teammates in the latter part of the race, Dumoulin successfully warded off attacks from both Quintana and Nibali on the last climb of the day, and even put in his own dig to show his closest competitors he has the legs. However, the shared tactics by Nibali and Quintana to mark the maglia rosa instead of chasing Thibaut Pinot (FDJ), a threat to their podium position, didn’t sit well with the Dutchman.
“They are only focusing on me, and trying to make me lose instead of trying to win. In the last moment they lost a lot of time to the other competitors,” Dumoulin said. “I really hope that riding like this they will lose their podium spot in Milan, that would be really nice, and I would be really happy.”
“It’s another hard day tomorrow. It’ll be super hard on the last climb. Maybe they will try something. At the end I had good legs today and hope the same tomorrow.”
“It would be a dream scenario if the other competitors didn't get any closer, but now Thibaut Pinot almost took a minute on me just because Nibali and Quintana made a pact, clearly. It's their right, but it would be nice if they lose their podium spot for that behavior.”
Quintana’s first full on attack came with about 50 km remaining in the stage. The Movistar rider bridged to Amador while Nibali came across to the two riders. The move put 30 seconds into the maglia rosa but it wasn’t enough to completely dispatch him as he calmly paced back up to his rivals, neutralizing any danger from the Movistar team.
“We had to attack, and the whole team has worked as expected to make my accelerations possible,” Quintana said. “It was a fast, hard stage, and my teammates did a great job to liven it up. We tried one way and another, moving off the front several times and playing our cards, but it was not possible to put time on the leader. Dumoulin defended himself well and also found some circumstantial rivals at times, riders who were working for their own interest but happened to favor the leader's chances.”
Meanwhile, at the front of the race, Tejay van Garderen and Mikel Landa were working hard to maintain their one-minute advantage after escaping what remained of the early break.\nThere were two races happening on the Pontives, with van Garderen and Dumoulin emerging the winners. Van Garderen outsprinted Landa to take his first big GC win while Dumoulin rode a smart, tactical race that ensured his 16th day in the pink jersey.
The fight begins all over again tomorrow, with two brutal categorised climbs on the way to a Cat. 1 uphill finish in Piancavallo.
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