Jonas Vingegaard slammed the door shut on the Giro d\u2019Italia with a brutal solo victory Saturday in stage 14 to ride into the pink jersey perhaps for good.<\/p>\n
The Dane attacked with 4.5km to go on the Cat. 1 climb to Pila to drop everyone to win his third stage of the 2026 Giro and move into the \u201cmaglia rosa\u201d for the first time of his career.<\/p>\n
Visma-Lease a Bike played a near-perfect stage in the five-climbs, 133km stage high into the Italian Alps. A big break was kept on a short leash, then Sepp Kuss and Davide Piganzoli set a brutal pace on the final climb to reel in the attackers, gap their GC rivals, and set up Vingegaard.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had this stage marked with an \u2018X\u2019,\u201d Vingegaard said. \u201cWe took control of the stage to get the pink jersey, and my teammates did a perfect job. I only had to finish the job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Overnight leader Afonso Eul\u00e1lio (Bahrain Victorious) finally saw his grip on the pink jersey unravel.<\/p>\n
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Kuss put the sword to the Portuguese rider and to the day\u2019s main breakaway with a massive pull midway up the final climb. When he pulled off at 6.5km to go, the pink jersey was up for grabs and the remnants of the break dangled only 30 seconds up the road.<\/p>\n
Vingegaard attacked with 4.5km to go to erase any doubts about illness or any questions from Tuesday\u2019s time trial.<\/p>\n
No one could answer.<\/p>\n
Felix Gall put up a brave fight to finish second and climb back into third overall.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s still a week to go in this Giro and it looks like no one can touch Vingegaard now.<\/p>\n
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How it happened<\/h2>\nEul\u00e1lio carried pink all the way to the final climb. <\/span> (Photo: Luca Bettini \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Like many days this deep into the Giro, Saturday became a stage of two races.<\/p>\n
Summer-like heat, a brutal profile, and high pace made for a horrendous stage for everyone as the Giro nears the end of its second week.<\/p>\n
At the front, stage-hunters pulled clear early on the day\u2019s first Cat. 1 climb, with three UAE riders and four from Movistar. Many teams are getting desperate for a win, and this was an ideal chance.<\/p>\n
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Visma didn\u2019t let the break get too much room, however, The gap nearly truly opened, and 13 survivors hit the base of the Pila climb nursing a lead just more than two minutes with 16.9km to go.<\/p>\n
That wasn\u2019t going to be enough.<\/p>\n
Eul\u00e1lio did his part to carry the pink jersey to the base of the final climb. The Portuguese rider took the maglia rosa<\/em> in stage 5 and defended it longer than anyone could have expected.<\/p>\n
The Pila climb was a long goodbye to the leader\u2019s jersey, but he surprised again by defending second place on GC.<\/p>\n
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Vingegaard wins third stage<\/h2>\nVingegaard powers to victory. <\/span> (Photo: Luca Bettini \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Victor Campernaerts \u2014 who made headlines this week about peeing into water bottles \u2014 drove the GC bunch until 10km to go, then Kuss took over.<\/p>\n
Up the road, Wout Poels punched the gas with 9km to go, drawing out Giulio Ciccone and Einer Rubio, but the pace set by Kuss reduced the gap to under 30 seconds with 6km to go. Everything was on the line as riders like Derek Gee-West and Ben O\u2019Connor also wilted under the infernal pace.<\/p>\n
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Visma sensation Piganzoli took over and swept up the last of the breakaway riders with 5km to go.<\/p>\n
The Dane surged clear with 4.5km to go and it was all but game over. Gall gave a brave chase and everyone else behind slipped into damage control.<\/p>\n
\u201cOut of three mountain stages I\u2019ve won so far, today\u2019s is the one I\u2019ll remember the most,\u201d Vingegaard said. \u201cWe made a plan with the team. We wanted to control the race. My teammates did an incredible job all day long. It was very impressive how they rode. I\u2019m proud of them and proud to pay them back. It\u2019s a nice win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pellizzari and Hindley, both hampered by stomach issues last week, rebounded well to defend on the long twisting climb, but still gave up each around 1 minute.<\/p>\n
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Thymen Arensman \u2014 who is ruffling feathers in this Giro by refusing to speak to the media covering the race on the ground \u2014 gave up the time he clawed back in Tuesday\u2019s time trial to cross at 1:23 back.<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s transition stage into Milan should be one for the sprinters.<\/p>\n
With the Giro\u2019s infamous final week still to come, Vingegaard is in the driver\u2019s seat.<\/p>\n
Will the 2026 Giro deliver another trademark closing-days reversal? Stay tuned.<\/p>\n
[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/vingegaard-giro-2026-stage-14.jpg”] Andrew Hood Updated May 23, 2026 09:50AM Jonas Vingegaard slammed the door shut on the Giro d\u2019Italia with a brutal solo victory Saturday in stage 14 to ride into the pink jersey perhaps for good. The Dane attacked with 4.5km to go on the Cat. 1 climb to Pila to drop everyone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-1951439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1951439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1951439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1951439\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1951439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1951439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1951439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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