After struggling dramatically in the cold on the Monte Jafferau on Saturday, Scarponi (Lampre-Merida) managed to stay side by side with race leader Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) on the Galibier and finished 6th on the stage at the Giro d’Italia yesterday, but once again his efforts and the sudden, often dramatic changes in weather had clearly taken their toll.

“It went quite well and I don’t think there’s a huge difference between the best riders here,” Scarponi explained to the reporters according to Gazzetta dello Sport. “I held my own and I rode very well so I’m still confident about my Giro and the week to come.”

Somewhat surprisingly, Scarponi had conceded time at both Altopiano del Montasio on stage 10 and the Jafferau on stage 14.

On the Galibier on Sunday, however, Scarponi showed unmistakable signs of recovering fast, forcing the pace with teammate Przemyslaw Niemiec with 3km to go in a bid to put Nibali under pressure. The maglia rosa responded in kind to that attack and Scarponi was unable to drop his compatriot and main rival.

Due to heavy snowfall at the summit of the Galibier mountain and the inherent risk of avalanches, yesterday’s stage was reduced by four kilometres. Thereby the most challenging sections of the climb were eliminated but Scarponi felt that the alteration had little real impact on the outcome of the stage.

“Maybe if there were another four kilometres, the battle would just have started a bit further up anyway,” he said. “So it wouldn’t have changed much apart from that it would have been a bit colder at the top. I suffered a lot yesterday [Saturday] in the cold but I managed to recover well overnight and I was feeling better today. It was very cold again today but at least it wasn’t as cold as yesterday and there wasn’t any snow at the bottom of the Galibier.”

As the Giro riders enjoy their second rest day on the threshold of the third week of racing, Scarponi lies 5th overall, 3’53” behind Nibali and a little over a minute off a podium place.