Vincenzo Nibali made sure that barring a major accident, he will top the podium in Bescia and win the Giro D'Italia with a Stage 20 victory.
With the weather easing and talking subsiding over Danilo De Luca's exclusion for testing positive from an out of competition test on April 29th, which prompted De Luca's former boss Luca Scinto to tell www.cyclingnews.com: "He's mad, he's a cretino, he needs treatment. There's nothing else to say. We gave him a second chance and the sponsors put their faith in him and this is how he pays us back. It's crazy that a rider thinks they can get away with it like that.", stage twenty which was a 210 kilometre stage from Silandro to Tre Cime di Lavaredo, got underway.
The course was re-adjusted by the race organisers with the climbs of the Passo Costalunga, Passo San Pellegrino and Passo Giau taken out of the stage which started without Blanco rider Robert Gesink, who withdrew due to illness.
Giairo Ermeti (Androni Giocattoli), Yaroslav Popovych, (RadioShack Leopard), Adam Hansen (Lotto Belisol) and Pavel Brutt (Katusha).were the first riders to get away and with 175kms remaining, they had a lead of 1.10 and sixty six kilometres further up the road, they were in front by 7.30.
Points leader Mark Cavendish snatched a couple more points in the intermediate sprint, won by Pavel Brutt, to keep him ahead of Cadel Evans as the gap came down to 4.50,some 48 kilometres from a finish line which was now in amidst snow and fog.
Into the final 25 kilometres and the lead was 2.44 as Popovych pushed on in the rain. Popovych took the second sprint at Campiano D' Ampezzo with Mark Cavendish again taking the two points on offer before the riders started on the Tre Croci climb.in the Dolomites mountain.
This was a climb that had a maximum of 12% gradient and saw Popovych crack allowing Brutt and Hansen to take over the lead. Cadel Evans tried to attack but race leader Vincenzo Nibali went with him.
Pieter Weening was trying to bridge the gap to the two escapers as Brutt ploughed on ahead of Hansen. Weening caught Hansen with 15.9kms to go and was charging after Brutt, as Atapuma got past Hansen.
Brutt took the points on the climb with Weening now only 26 seconds down. Stefan Perazzi came in third which appears to be enough to give him the King Of The Mountains race title.
Weening along with Capecchi and Brambilla caught Brutt and dropped him. With six to go, Eros Capecchi went away on the Tre Cime di Lavaredo climb.
The conditions were awful as Nibali battled his way through the spectators, sweeping past Weening and leaving three Colombians in Duarte, Betancur and Uran to chase him, whilst Evans was passed by Scarponi and Caruso.
Nibali kept going much to the delight of the crowd and took the win, as the snow continued to come down, in a time of 5.27.41 at an average speed of 38.653kmph.
Duarte was second, seventeen seconds back ahead of Uran. Carlos Betancur came home to take back the Young Riders jersey, whilst Evans came in 1.47 down which means that he is now third on the podium behind Uran, who is 4.43 behind Vincenzo Nibali who also took the red jersey off Mark Cavendish.