Jai Hindley and Tao Geoghegan Hart vaulted themselves to within seconds of the leader’s maglia rosa as the Giro d’Italia exploded on the slopes of the famed Stelvio. Hindley nicked the stage 18 victory from the Londoner at the line while the Australian’s Sunweb teammate Wilco Kelderman took the pink jersey off the shoulders of João Almeida, but a dramatic day left the race delicately poised going into the final weekend. Kelderman may have inherited the lead but he too struggled, finishing two minutes and 18 seconds behind his teammate, and the fight for pink could yet be a battle between two riders who came to the race as domestiques. Hindley sits 12 seconds off pink, with Ineos Grenadiers’ Geoghegan Hart sitting menacingly in third, three seconds further back, after a day in which he came of age as a Grand Tour rider. Inevitably it was the snow-covered Stelvio, the highest paved mountain pass in the eastern Alps at 2,757m, that provided the stage for a dramatic change of the script. Almeida, resplendent in pink since stage three on Mount Etna more than two weeks ago, faded early on this 25km slog to the summit and others – Vincenzo Nibali and Jakob Fuglsang among them – soon followed. As Rohan Dennis put the power down for Geoghegan Hart, the bigger surprise came when Kelderman was dropped with nearly 10km of the climb still to come. Hindley did not wait for his teammate, determinedly sticking to the Ineos pair to the top. The young Australian had more drama as he struggled to put on his jacket, almost crashing his bike at one point, before wrestling his arm in. But neither he, nor Kelderman behind, could zip up their jackets before the top – setting off on to the high-paced descent exposed to the biting cold with wind chill putting the temperatures below zero. Kelderman crossed the summit some 46 seconds after the leading group, Almeida almost three minutes further back, though he would claw some of that back on the way down. But as they hit the valley approaching the next climb, Kelderman quickly went backwards, overtaken by a recovering Pello Bilbao and Fuglsang as Geoghegan Hart and Hindley thought about battling for pink. A scrapping performance from Kelderman would deny them that but, with such narrow margins covering the top three, the race is wide open now. Bilbao sits fourth, 1min and 19sec down, while Almeida dropped to fifth, 2:16 down. “It was a crazy day, super hard, the hardest day of my life,” said Kelderman. “It was a super fight. It couldn’t be any better for us with Jai getting the stage win and me in pink. We dropped Almeida quite early on the Stelvio and then it was a race – Ineos was super strong with two guys and I couldn’t hold them.” Hindley said: “I saw the opportunity to take a stage and I took it. It wasn’t our tactic to go solo. I followed the plan, got the stage and I’m happy with that.” Almeida said he was proud of his race. “I’m happy. On the other hand, I lost the pink jersey,” he said. “They [his rivals] were just super strong. I’m not at their level.” A bunch sprint is expected on Friday’s relatively flat stage 19 to Asti before another mountain test to Sestriere on Saturday, though stage 20 has been watered down because of enforced changes to the route. The winner, however, will not be known until after Sunday’s closing time trial in Milan. Martin claims Vuelta stage win as Roglic stays in red Dan Martin claimed victory on stage three of the Vuelta a España as early race leader, Primoz Roglic of Jumbo-Visma, also put in a strong showing to remain in red. The 166km Lodosa to Vinuesa route featured two categorised climbs which ultimately decided the outcome of the stage. Israel Start-Up Nation’s rider Martin attacked in the last 200m of the final climb to Laguna Negra’s summit finish, holding off 2019 Vuelta winner Roglic of Slovenia and Ineos’s Ecuadorean Richard Carapaz in the battle to the line. “I’ve come so close to winning this year. I just really wanted to win a stage for this team because they’ve been so good to me,” the emotional Irishman said. “Obviously with the [back] injury at the Tour [de France], I couldn’t win a stage but I was really determined to win today. The team were amazing, and every single one of them played their part in the victory. “This win is partly for them and then partly for my wife, because this is the first time I’ve won a race since my kids were born and it’s really special.” On another unseasonably rainy day, which started with the news that Thibaut Pinot had pulled out because of injury, there were multiple break attempts. However, hopes of a surprise win were extinguished as the peloton reeled them in on the opening slopes of the final climb. The Colombian GC contender Esteban Chaves, part of the lead group, suffered a mechanical problem with just over 4km remaining and his rivals made him pay as they pulled clear while he waited to change bikes. He has slipped to eighth in the overall standings, 1min 29sec adrift of Roglic. In a nip-tuck end to the climb, with gradients hitting double figures, several riders attempted to launch attacks but Martin’s well-timed move paid off as he claimed the stage win and cut Roglic’s overall lead to just five seconds. Friday is the first day for the sprinters, with a 192km flat stage from Garay to Ejea de los Caballeros in Zaragoza.