Going into the final stage og the Giro d'Italia, Luka Mezgec felt under additional pressure as the stage ended in Trieste close to the Italian-Slovenian border. The added weight on his shoulders may have served as the perfect motivation for the Slovenian as he proved to be in a class of his own when the race came to a conclusion with the expected bunch sprint.

 

When Sebastien Chavanel made his lead-out for Nacer Bouhanni, however, Mezgec seemed to be out of the running as he was positioned pretty far back. Bouhanni had lost the wheel of his teammate and so it was Roberto Ferrari (Lampre-Merida) who launched the sprint.

 

Mezgec had been fighting hard for position with Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Sharp) and Ben Swift (Sky) and had lost the battle and so started his sprint from far back. While Ferrari faded and Bouhanni was far from his usual fast self, Giacomo Nizzolo (Trek) shot ahead and seemed to be on his way to another stage victory.

 

However, it wasn't to be for the consistent Italian as Mezgec did the sprint of his life. The Slovenian was clearly the fastest and passed all his rivals on the right to take a clear win ahead of Nizzolo and Farrar while Bouhanni could only manage fourth.

 

A few seconds later, Nairo Quintana rolled across the line with a big smile on his face and his arms in the air as he had safely finished the final stage of the race. Even though he lost a few seconds to Rigoberto Uran in the hectic finale, there was no reason to worry as he could step onto the podium as a deserved winner of the 2014 Giro d'Italia.

 

Rigoberto Uran made it two Colombians on the final podium while Fabio Aru confirmed his big breakthrough by taking third in his big home race. Pierre Rolland (Europcar) and Domenico Pozzovivo (Ag2r) rounded out the top 5.

 

Despite a poor performance in the final sprint, Bouhanni secured the points jersey ahead of Nizzolo after new rules had made it easier for the sprinters to win the presitigious tunic while Julian Arredondo (Trek) crowned an aggressive race by winning the mountains jersey. Quintana was of course also the best young rider while Ag2r-La Mondiale took a convincing win in the teams classification.

 

With the Giro d'Italia now done and dusted, attention turns to the Tour de France. Next Sunday, the WorldTour continues with the first of the traditional warm-up events when the Criterium du Dauphiné kicks off with a 10km time trial.

 

After three consecutive days in the mountains, the 2014 Giro d'Italia ended in flatter terrain as the final stage brought the riders over 172km from Gemona del Friuli to Trieste. The stage had a small categorized climb in the first part but was otherwise almost completely flat as they riders travelled towards the finish in Trieste. Here the stage ended with 8 laps of a 7.15km finishing circuit that was mostly non-technical but included a small 1km climb at the halfway point.

 

All the riders that finished yesterday's brutal stage to Monte Zoncolan took the start in Gemona del Friuli under beautiful weather conditions and prepared themselves for the traditional parade racing. As it is usually the case in a final grand tour stage, the riders took the opportunity to celebrate three weeks of hard racing, take some photos and congratulate eache other while the rolled along the flat roads in the early part of the stage.

 

As a consequence, the pace was very slow and the riders only covered 32km in the first hour. However, the aggression started a bit earlier than many had expected as the first attacks were launched already at the 30km mark.

 

Maarten Tjallingii (Belkin) and Svein Tuft whose Orica-GreenEDGE team had almost promised to make a mark on the final day, took off and managed to build up a gap. As Tjallingii led Tuft across the line at the top of the only climb, they were 1.15 ahead but as the purpose for the Dutchman only was to secure the points, they fell back to the peloton.

 

From there, the leisurely ride continued for a long time as the riders took the time to talk to each other while Movistar set a steady pace to make sure that things didn't get too lazy. Gorka Izagirre and Jonathan Castroviejo had the not too difficult task of setting a reasonable speed.

 

As the riders passed the feed zone, Movistar briefly disappeared from the front but 10km from the first passage of the line, they went back to work. Adriano Malori hit the front and the Italian led the bunch across the line for the first time.

 

Malori, Jose Herrada, Eros Capecchi, Castroviejo and Igor Anton set the pace on the first lap but the tension was now rising as the riders had started to position themselves behind the Spanish team. Shortly before the completion of the second lap, the first attack was finally launched when Tuft made his next attempt.

 

Lars Bak (Lotto Belisol) joined the Canadian and as there was no reaction from the peloton, they quickly opened a 45-seconds advantage. As they hit the climb the next time, however, Sky upped the pace with Philip Deignan.

 

The Irishman brought the gap down to 35 seconds while FDJ moved up to prepare for the intermediate sprint. Movistar briefly took over before Julian Arredondo upped the pace for Trek.

 

After Bak had left Tuft across the line to take maximum points, however, Trek and Nizzolo were nowhere to be seen and instead Murilo Fischer and Bouhanni escaped, allowing the latter to finish third and thus strengthn his grip on the points jersey. Cannondale brought the pair back and then Trek and the Italian took over the pace-setting, with Riccardo Zoidl, Arredondo, Michel Koch and Ivan Basso doing the work.

 

As Trek again stopped, Cannondale got some surprise assistance from Colombia and with 21km to go, the two teams had brought the gap down to 15 seconds. Deignan went back to work before Zoidl also strated to contribute for Trek.

 

The next time up the climb, Stefano Pirazzi (Bardiani) and Valerio Agnoli (Astana) attacked and they were quickly joined by Carlos Quintero (Colombia). At the top, they had bridged the gap to the two leaders and at the next passage of the line, the quintet was 10 seconds ahead of the peloton which was led by Cannondale and Sky, with Deignan and Koch doing the work.

 

There was no cooperation in the front group and after Bak had made a small attack 13km from the line, the move was shut down. Colombia, Fabio Felline (Trek), Deignan and Koch set a hard pace until Andrey Amador made one final demonstration for Movistar as he led the group onto the climb.

 

Jarlinson Pantano (Colombia) attacked bu Dario Cataldo shut it down for Sky and he also reacted swiftly to the next attack from Francesco Bongiorno (Bardiani). Michael Hepburn (Orica-GreenEDGE) hit it hard on the descent and at the bottom he had escaped with Cataldo, Felline, Bongiorno and Gorke Izagirre (Movistar).

 

The move was shut down and instead Felline and Deignan took over, leading the peloton onto the final lap. Danilo Hondo and Eugenio Alafaci took some huge turns for Trek but when they hit the climb, it was Adam Hansen (Lotto Belisol) that attacked.

 

The Australian had no success and instead Daniel Oss (BMC) took off on the descent. The Italian got a decent gap but just before the flamme rouge, Trek shut it down.

 

Boy Van Poppel passed the flamme rouge with his sprinter Nizzolo on his wheel but he was passed by Chavanel who moved up with Ferrari and Bouhanni just behind. Nizzolo managed to get in between those two sprinters when Chavanel launched his lead-our.

 

Ferrari opened the sprint from the front but was easily passed by Nizzolo who seemed to be riding away with the win. However, Mezgec came fast from behind to take the third victory for Giant-Shimano in the race.