Tom Dumoulin on Thursday laughed off the tactics of rivals Nairo Quintana and Vincenzo Nibali on his way to defending the pink jersey in a thrilling 18th stage of the Giro d’Italia won by American Tejay Van Garderen.
After thwarting a series of attacks by Quintana on the fifth and final climb of a spectacular stage through the Dolomites, the Team Sunweb leader finished ninth at 1 minute, 6 seconds behind BMC Racing rider Van Garderen to maintain his 31-second lead on the Colombian climbing specialist and a 1 minute, 12 second cushion on Italy’s two-time winner Nibali.
Bidding to become the first Dutch winner of the three-week Grand Tour, Dumoulin was buoyed further when Quintana and Nibali failed to counter Frenchman Thibaut Pinot, who attacked late to come over the finish just eight seconds behind Van Garderen and close his deficit on third-placed Nibali to just 24 seconds.
“Vincenzo and Nairo were clearly working together and they lost one minute on guys like Pinot and [Domenico] Pozzovivo,” said Dumoulin, who took the pink jersey from Quintana on stage 10 with a crushing time trial win that left the Colombian nearly three minutes in arrears. “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.”
Dumoulin narrowly avoided losing his lead on the “Queen” mountain stage to Bormio on Tuesday, when an unscheduled toilet stop saw Quintana slash his deficit to just 31 seconds.
However, on another climb-heavy day, the Dutchman reinforced his bid for the maglia rosa with another defiant ride.
Dumoulin was only too happy to see an early escape break away from the peloton to go on and build a convincing lead.
However, with just more than 50km remaining, the tall Dutchman was jolted into action. Quintana raced off the front of their chase group to join Costa Rican teammate Andrey Amador further up the climb.
Alert to the danger, Nibali followed suit moments later, racing ahead of Dumoulin to join compatriot Dario Cataldo.
However, Dumoulin dug deep and quickly closed the gap.
As Van Garderen and fellow front-runner Mikel Landa forged toward an eventual two-up sprint at the finish, Quintana put Dumoulin to the test again.
However, the Colombian’s move soon fizzled out, and when Nibali attacked and took Quintana with him with 5km remaining, Dumoulin kept his composure, launching a defiant, but brief attack of his own soon after.
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