Nico Denz won stage 18 of the Giro d’Italia on Thursday as the German rider rode solo to victory in the final stages of the 144 km ride from Morbegno to Cesano Maderno while overall leader Isaac del Toro retained his pink jersey.
In one of the shortest racing stages of this year’s Giro, Denz was part of a breakaway group of 11 riders and the Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe rider attacked with 11km to go on the final flat section of the stage.
The 31-year-old outfoxed the group and held a 32-second lead with five kilometres left, blowing kisses to the fans lined up along the final stretch and looking back to see no rider behind him.
By the time he crossed the finish line with his arms outstretched, he had finished a minute ahead of the chasing pack for the third Giro stage win of his career.
Victory allowed the team to salvage something from this year’s Giro as they celebrated a first stage win after they had seen pre-race favourite Primoz Roglic abandon the race on Tuesday following a crash on stage 16.
“This is probably the most emotional of my victories at the Giro. Losing Jai Hindley early then the whole team, staff included, was fully committed to help Primoz Roglic win the Giro. We spent two months in altitude for that,” Denz said.
“I was three months away from home to prepare for the Giro. A dream was lost when we lost Primoz. We’ve thought all this hard work was for nothing. Luckily things turned around.”
Team Polti’s Mirco Maestri finished second after beating Edward Planckaert of Alpecin-Deceuninck in the sprint.
Del Toro of UAE Team Emirates XRG retained a 41-second lead over Richard Carapaz of EF Education-EasyPost and Simon Yates of Visma-Lease a Bike is 51 seconds behind with three stages to go.
The Giro heads into the mountains on Friday, with stage 19 a 166km ride from Biella to Champoluc that consists of several climbs and descents.
