Steven Kruijswijk fell to the fourth place in the Giro d’Italia during the penultimate day of the race today. Team LottoNL-Jumbo’s leader fought for his life the day after his crash, but could not stop Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) in the final part of the stage. Rein Taaramäe (Katusha) won the stage, Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) passed Esteban Chaves (Orica - GreenEDGE) to grab the pink jersey.

A small rib fracture made Kruijswijk’s day that much harder. Overnight, it was unclear if he would even start. Kruijswijk was suffering with a lot of pain in his foot and the side of his body, but moved on.

“I didn’t suffer for three weeks to give it all up now,” he said. “This last hard day was possible only because I suffered through the rest, but I am totally exhausted now. The only thing that was possible was to hold my top three spot because I lost the Giro yesterday. It’s a shame that I’m standing here without the pink jersey now.”

The best I could

Kruijswijk slipped out of the top three during the final part of the Colle della Lombarda climb. When Nibali attacked, Chaves and Valverde were able to hold on for a while. Chaves lost ground eventually and fell back to Kruijswijk’s group while Valverde joined with Rigoberto Urán (Cannondale).

“I did the best I could,” Kruijswijk continued. “I barely slept last night after my crash and I felt a lot of pain. I tried to ignore that pain. I wanted to forget everything and go to the finish line. I did. This was it.”

Wonderful Giro

“I’m proud of what Steven pushed out of his body today,” Sports Director Addy Engels added. “We saw during the stage that he wasn’t the same Steven as he was before his crash, but that he was still at a good level, and that was more than we had hoped for.

“We had to begin the day without a target because maybe Steven was feeling bad and had to abandon the race, but he was still quite strong. That makes it even more painful that he lost his third place. We were close, and that hurts, but we still delivered a wonderful Giro d’Italia with our team.” The race finishes with a flat stage to Turin on Sunday.