Nico Denz soloed to Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe's first victory of the 2025 Giro d'Italia on Thursday's stage 18. With a little under 20 km to go, the 31-year-old German attacked out of a small group that had already jumped clear of the day's big breakaway move.
From there, Denz held on through the final crossing of the line on a finishing circuit in Cesano Maderno to take his third career Giro stage win, two years after he took of a pair of them at the 2023 race.
Just over a minute later, Mirco Maestri (Polti-VisitMalta) took runner-up honors with Edward Planckaert (Alpecin-Deceuninck) in third. Race leader Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and the rest of the top GC riders finished together safely in the peloton nearly 14 minutes behind the winner on what was a quiet day for the pink jersey hopefuls before the huge challenges to come.
Did we do a good job with this story?
