In a nail-biting finale, the Frenchman came close to his maiden podium in a Grand Tour stage.
A largely downhill course was on the cards for the 222km-long stage 18, which started in Valdaora and concluded in Santa Maria di Sala, the hometown of Antonio Bevilacqua, the 1951 Paris-Roubaix champion and winner of eleven stages at the Giro d’Italia. On paper, it wasn’t a route suitable to a breakaway, and that was why only three riders escaped from the peloton’s clutches after a rapid start to the stage.
The trio took their margin north of six minutes after 50 kilometers, but despite that, the field took it easy and didn’t look too worried, starting the chase only with 80 kilometers to go. As they passed through the second intermediate sprint, the clock showed a gap of just 2:20, but inexplicably, it went up again to three minutes, encouraging the escapees to keep pushing.
A couple of 90-degree left-handers inside the last ten kilometers helped the three leaders to hold their advantage over the peloton at one minute, but a late injection of pace eventually reduced the gap to 17 seconds under the flamme rouge. A cat-and-mouse game between the three helped the chasers make inroads, but just as they looked on the verge of catching them, Damiano Cima (Nippo-Vini Fantini) opened his sprint and nabbed the stage honours.
Deceuninck – Quick-Step got in the mix with Florian Sénéchal, who despite being boxed in as he was preparing to kick out, found some space and had the strength to sprint in the hectic finale, coming just outside the podium. The 25-year-old Frenchman, who is riding his fifth Grand Tour, took his sixth top 10 finish of a season which saw him score a maiden pro victory in March, at Le Samyn.
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