Giro d'Italia Stage 19: Nairo Quintana edges closer to glory

Just one mountain stage - a summit finish on the Zoncolan tomorrow - plus Sunday's flat stage in Trieste separate Movistar's Nairo Quintana from becoming the first Colombian to win the Giro d'Italia.

The 24-year-old won today's individual time trial to Montegrappa, by 17 seconds from Astana's Fabio Aru, the emerging star of Italian cycling, who moves to third place overall.

Omega Pharma-Quick Step's Rigoberto Uran was a further 1 minute 3 seconds back, and stays in second place overall, but Quintana now leads the race by 3 minutes 7 seconds.

Many riders, including Quintana and Uran, rode the earlier part of the course on a time trial bike, switching to a road bike as the parcours headed uphill at around the 7.8km mark, and getting some big pushes from their team mechanics to get them back up to speed.

Uran took half a minute off the race leader in that earlier part of the 26.8km course from Bassano di Grappa, but once the ascent commenced, his compatriot got that time back, and more besides.

In a Giro d’Italia that has acquired a distinctly Colombian flavour, one of the best rides today was by the youngest rider in the race, Team Sky’s Sebastian Henao, aged just 20.

That would prove to be the eighth fastest time, but his performance, together with those of  Quintana and Uran and mountains classification leader Julian Arredondo of Trek Factory Racing, suggests that Colombian riders may be poised to dominate cycling’s Grand Tours in the coming years.

Runner-up in last year's Tour de France where he won the mountains and young rider classifications, Quintana – decked out for the stage in so much pink that even Barbie might have considered the look a bit over the top – confirmed today that he is the pick of the bunch right now.

Following today's stage, Quintana said: “I took the questions the press has been asking me seriously, and said to myself 'Today, I have what it takes to win the Giro.'

"I didn’t want to say so before, but [mountain time trials] are my speciality so I couldn’t let this stage go without winning it, especially on the day my family came from Colombia to visit me. It gave me strength. So too did the work of the team who helped me prepare for today’s stage.

“Before last year’s Tour, I was an unknown. Now I’m confirmed as a contender. The Tour gave me the opportunity to show the world who Nairo Quintana is. I’ve done it again here, and now the world knows that I’m capable of competing for Grand Tours. This race is fabulous: I love the Italian spectators and the Italian mountains.”

Speaking of omorrow’sfinal  stage in the mountains, he added: “I’ve reconnoitred the start of the Zoncolan. I like it a lot: It’s pretty demanding, but those are the mountains I like. I couldn’t see it all because when I went there, months ago, it was covered in snow.

"We’ll see how the team is tomorrow - from what I’ve seen, it will be very good. We’ll see how the race goes, and if I feel good, why not try for the stage win - help a team-mate: don’t forget, one of my team-mates [Igor Antón] has already won on the Zoncolan.”

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