Geoghegan Hart excels on iconic Giro climb to reel in leaders
Tao Geoghegan Hart vaulted himself to within 15 seconds of the pink jersey as the Giro d'italia exploded on the slopes of the famed Stelvio.
Jai Hindley nicked the stage 18 victory from the Scot at the line while the Australian' s Team Sun web team-mate Wilco Kelder man took pink off the shoulders of Joao Almeida, but a dramatic day left the race delicately poised going into the final weekend.
K elder man may have inherited the lead but he too struggled, finishing two minutes 18 seconds behind his teammate, and the fight for pink could yet be a battle between two riders who came to the race as domestiques.
Hindley sits 12 seconds off pink, with the Ineos Grenadiers' Geoghegan Hart sitting menacingly in third after a day in which he came of age as a Grand Tour rider.
Inevitably it was the snowcovered Stelvio, the highest paved mountain pass in the eastern Alps at 2,757m, that provided the stage for a dramatic change of the script.
Al me ida, resplendent in pink since stage three on Mount Et na more than two weeks ago, faded early on this 25km slog to the summit and others - Vincenzo Nibali and Jakob Fuglsang amongst them - soon followed.
As R oh an Dennis put the power down for Geog hegan Hart, the bigger surprise came when Kelderman was dropped with nearly 10km of the climb still to come.
Hindley did not wait for his team-mate, determinedly sticking to the Ineos pair to the top. The young Australian had more drama as he struggled to put on his jacket, almost crashing his bike at one point, before wrestling his arm in. But neither he, nor Kelderman behind, could zip up their jackets before the top - setting off on to the high-paced descent exposed to the biting cold with wind chill putting the temperatures below zero.
K elder man crossed the summit some 46 seconds after the leading group, Almeida almost three minutes further back, though he would claw some of that back on the way down.
But as they hit the valley approaching the next climb, Kelderman quickly went backwards, overtaken by a recovering Pello Bilbao and Fuglsang as Geoghegan Hart and Hindle y-two supposed domestiques - thought about battling for pink.
A scrapping performance from Kelderman would deny them that, but with such narrow deficits covering the top three, the race is wide op en now.
Bilbao sits fourth, one minute 19 seconds down, while Almeida dropped to fifth, two minutes 16 seconds down.
A bunch sprint is expected on Friday' s relatively flat stage 19 to Asti before another mountain test to Sestiere on Saturday. The winner, however, will not be known until
after Sunday's closing time trial in Milan.
At the Vuelta a Espana, Ire - land’s Dan Martin battled to victory on stage three – a sum
mit finish at Laguna Negra to close on race leader Primoz Roglic.
Roglic (Jumbo-visma) edged out Richard Carapaz (Ineos
Grenadiers) to cross in second place, but Martin’s time bonus saw him cut the deficit on the Slovenian to just five seconds in the general classification.