CHRIS FROOME IS just on a different level altogether.
The Team Sky rider and four-time Tour de France winner put in an astonishing effort to win Stage 19 of the Giro d’Italia and seize the lead in a performance that could go down as one of cycling’s best.
In the overall standing, Froome now holds a 40-second lead over Tom Dumuolin and a lead of over four minutes on third placed Thibaut Pinot with just two stages to go. The last stage finishes in Rome on Sunday.
The maglia rosa holder at the beginning of the day, Simon Yates took a 56-second advantage into the stage but was lost a long way back in a disastrous day for the Briton. Other contender Tom Dumuolin finished three minutes and 23 seconds behind Froome in fifth place.
LA NUOVA CLASSIFICA GENERALE 😍
— Eurosport IT (@Eurosport_IT) May 25, 2018
Chris #Froome è in maglia rosa con 40” di vantaggio su Dumoulin 🚴♂️⏱#Giro101 #EurosportCICLISMO pic.twitter.com/fSontj7Je5
Froome made a dramatic attack with a massive 80 kilometres to go and stormed ahead up the famous Colle Delle Finistre climb and a further two climbs and put massive time between him and his rivals, picking up additional bonus-seconds for winning the stage.
"Chris Froome ... knockout performance!"
— Eurosport UK (@Eurosport_UK) May 25, 2018
Incredibly, the @TeamSky moves into pink after a sensational ride #Giro101 pic.twitter.com/AP5fdQsyiD
“I don’t think I’ve ever attacked with 80km to go like that before on my own, and got all the way to the finish,” he told Eurosport.
“But the team did such a fantastic job to set that up for me. It was going to take something really special to try and first of all get rid of Simon, to get away from Dumoulin and Pozzovivo and to go from fourth to first.
“I wasn’t going to do that on the last climb alone so I had to try it from a long way back and Colle delle Finestre was the perfect place to do it – a gravel road which reminds me of the roads back in Africa.
“I tried to stay within my limits and stay within myself there, so hopefully we can finish this off tomorrow.”
Chris Froome pulls on the Maglia Rosa for the first time in his career 👚 #Giro101 pic.twitter.com/oIWS95WY7Z
— Eurosport UK (@Eurosport_UK) May 25, 2018
The British rider has never won the Giro d’Italia, his best finish was 36th in 2009. He propelled himself into contention after victory in stage 14 last Saturday, recovering from a poor opening week.
Astana’s Miguel Angel Lopez holds on to the white jersey in the Giro after a fourth place finish on Friday while Ireland’s Sam Bennett also remains in second place in the points classification for sprints.
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Nothing too spectacular about it, but Miller is a quality technically gifted player, pity he didn’t stay in cork for what could be a special year
It’s nice to see him still make a living out of football
Liam Miller never done too much while playing for Cork City.
I always got the impression that he had the attitude that he was too good to be playing for City.
Glad to see the back of him.
He was consistently technically superior to most around him though
Maybe stick to these types of article Eoin.. That United one you just done was awful..
Ahhh poor diddums
Better than the Paul Fennessy articles though.
Brutal
He had a good season at Sunderland under Roy keane. The start was a disaster and it looked like Sunderland would get relegated. Then keano arrived and sensationally they won the league. What a season that was. They really did come back from the brink.
If he had have stayed at Celtic for a year or two develop a bit more he could have been real quality. Cant blame him for moving when he did though.
I’m sorry but Miller added noting to the City team, always passed sideways or backwards and never looked to get forward, was not sorry to see him leave