Spaniard Carlos Verona won stage 15 of the Giro d’Italia with a long-range solo attack on Sunday as former champion Primoz Roglic lost significant time on the rest of his general classification rivals.
Slovenian Roglic, one of the pre-race favourites, shipped a minute and a half to the rest of the contenders for the leader’s pink jersey after being dropped on the final climb with over 20km to go.
The 35-year-old Red Bull Bora-Hansgrohe rider tumbled from fifth to 10th in the overall standings and is now three minutes 53 seconds behind race leader Isaac del Toro.
Lidl-Trek rider Verona, 32, held off a chasing pack formed by some of his breakaway companions to secure his first Grand Tour stage win, and only his second pro victory.
“I certainly didn’t come to the Giro thinking that I could win a stage and I was happy with that,” said Verona, who finished 22 seconds ahead of Florian Stork with Christian Scaroni in third.
“I was here in full support for [points leader] Mads Pedersen and Giulio Ciccone [who did not start on Sunday after crashing on stage 14].
“Everything changed yesterday when we lost Cicco. Today is my day. I didn’t want to do it for me but I wanted to do it for the team, knowing how much Giulio had worked for this race.”
Britain’s Simon Yates of Team Visma-Lease a Bike remains second in the overall standings behind Mexican Del Toro, with the UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider taking a lead of one minute and 20 seconds into the final week.
Meanwhile, Swiss Marlen Reusser won the final time trial stage at the Vuelta a Burgos Feminas to wrap up overall victory in the Women’s World Tour event.
It secured back-to-back stage wins for the Movistar rider, who won the general classification by almost two minutes.
Italy’s Elisa Longo Borghini finished second in the general classification with Dutch rider Yara Kastelijn third.
