It’s climbers vs Dumoulin as Giro heads to the mountains

BERGAMO ( Italy): An array of punishing climbs on the final week of the Giro d’Italia stand between time trial specialist Tom Dumoulin making history as the first Dutch winner of the race’s pink jersey.

But with a lead of over two and a half minutes on Colombian climbing specialist Nairo Quintana, and nearly four minutes on Italy’s two-time champion Vincenzo Nibali, triumph on the coveted 100th edition of the Italian race is now Dumoulin’s to lose.

“The third week will be very difficult,” Dumoulin has repeated every day since he took the race lead from Quintana with a crushing time trial victory at Montefalcone on stage 10.

And the towering Dutchman, with the smouldering film star looks, isn’t far wrong.

After a third and final rest day on Monday the pink jersey battle moves up a considerable notch on a 16th stage which heralds the first of five consecutive days in the high mountains.

Quintana, the 2014 champion and a two-time runner-up at the Tour de France, should be in his element and hoping his Movistar team – as they have done so far – set the kind of punishing pace on the climbs that leave rival teams short of support riders.

On Sunday the diminutive Colombian thanked Dumoulin for slowing the pace of the peloton when he crashed on a descent 36km from the finish line in Bergamo, so he could catch up.

“It was a nice gesture from a big rival and a great person,” said Quintana, who recovered sufficiently to finish second, just behind Luxembourg’s Bob Jungels but six seconds ahead of Dumoulin to reduce his arrears to 2:41.

But Quintana is unlikely to return the favour if Dumoulin – who has impressed so far on the easier climbing stages – is left behind him, and Nibali will be even less charitable on the descents.

Nibali, the defending champion, sits fourth overall at 3:40 behind Dumoulin.

Like Quintana, Nibali has few options if he is to launch a late challenge for the main prize.

“It’s not over, but I have a fairly big deficit to Dumoulin. If he ends up winning (the race) when we get to Milan, I’ll shake his hand,” said Nibali. — AFP