Australian Jai Hindley (Bora) dethroned Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz in the Tour of Italy on Saturday in the 20th and penultimate stage won by Italian Alessandro Covi (UAE) at Passo Fedaia.
Carapaz (Ineos-Grenadiers) lost almost a minute and a half to Hindley in the last three kilometers of the big stage in the Dolomites.
The Australian will arrive at the start of the time trial on Sunday in Verona with a lead of 1'25” over the Olympic champion, who has been wearing the pink jersey since the 14th stage.
For the stage victory, Covi preceded the Slovenian Domen Novak by 32 seconds and the Italian Giulio Ciccone by 37 seconds.
Covi, who came out of the breakaway in the Pordoi, 53 km from the finish, approached the final ascent of Fedaia (14 km at 7.6%) with more than two minutes on a counterattack group and six minutes on the pack of favorites.
NOW OR NEVER!#Giro pic.twitter.com/SopzHDN62m
— Giro d'Italia (@giroditalia) May 28, 2022
The candidates for the podium stayed together in the San Pellegrino then the Pordoi, the first two passes of the day, in the wake of the teammates of the Spaniard Mikel Landa.
They waited for the steepest slopes of Passo Fedaia to explain themselves.
Hindley started at 3.5 km and bent Carapaz 2,800 m from the finish.
The wearer of the pink jersey, suffering, was even overtaken by Landa and conceded 1'28” to the Australian.
Already second overall in 2020
Hindley, 26, finished second in the 2020 Giro. That year he had donned the pink jersey on the eve of the finish and lost it in the final time trial in Milan.
But he had approached the time equal in time with the future winner, the Briton Tao Geoghegan Hart.
On Sunday, the 17.4 km long final time trial takes the Torricelle circuit in Verona, used during the 1999 and 2004 Worlds. The 2019 Giro won by Carapaz ended with an identical time, until the arrival in the famous bullring where the Italian Francesco Moser surpassed the Frenchman Laurent Fignon in a memorable edition in 1984.
