Italy’s Lorenzo Fortunato impressively climbed to his maiden career win on stage 14 of the Giro d’Italia, as Egan Bernal added to his overall lead at the summit of Monte Zoncolan.
Fortunato, riding for Eolo-Kometa, won the 205km stage in five hours 17 minutes 22 seconds.
Colombian Bernal came fourth, but crucially extended his race lead to 93 seconds.
Briton Simon Yates finished sixth and moved up to second overall.
Italy’s Damiano Caruso is third overall, 1:51 back.
Russian Aleksander Vlasov lost more than a minute on Ineos Grenadiers rider Bernal in the pink jersey on the final climb of the mountain stage – which included scaling gradients of over 20% in the final three kilometres.
“I think that I’m in a really good position now. I don’t need to attack on every mountain stage,” said 2019 Tour de France winner Bernal.
“I just need to be calm and patient. Finally I followed Yates and I tried to make an acceleration in the final and I think that I did a good race.”
Sunday’s 15th stage is 147km cross-border circuit between Italy and Slovenia which takes in three climbs.
Stage 14 results
1. Lorenzo Fortunato (ITA/Eolo-Kometa) 5hrs 17mins 22secs
2. Jan Tratnik (SLO/Bahrain Victorious) +26secs
3. Alessandro Covi (ITA/UAE Team Emirates) +59secs
4. Egan Bernal (COL/Ineos Grenadiers) +1min 43secs
5. Bauke Mollema (NED/Trek-Segafredo) +1:47
6. Simon Yates (GBR/Team BikeExchange) +1:54
7. George Bennett (NZL/Jumbo-Visma) +2:10
8. Nelson Oliveira (POR/Movistar Team) +2:18
9. Daniel Martinez (COL/Ineos Grenadiers) +2:22
10. Damiano Caruso (ITA/Bahrain Victorious) Same time
11. Giulio Ciccone (ITA/Trek-Segafredo) Same time
General classification
1. Egan Bernal (COL/Ineos Grenadiers) 58hrs 30mins 47secs
2. Simon Yates (GBR/Team BikeExchange) +1mins 33secs
3. Damiano Caruso (ITA/Bahrain Victorious) +1:51
4. Aleksandr Vlasov (RUS/Astana-Premier Tech) +1:57
5. Hugh Carthy (GBR/EF Education-Nippo) +2:11
6. Emanuel Buchmann (GER/Bora-hansgrohe) +2:36
7. Giulio Ciccone (ITA/Trek-Segafredo) +3:03
8. Remco Evenepoel (BEL/Deceuninck-Quick-Step) +3:52
9. Daniel Martinez (COL/Ineos Grenadiers) +3:54
10. Romain Bardet (FRA/Team DSM) +4:31
