ISAAC DEL TORO barely clung on to the pink jersey from Simon Yates on a dramatic, attritional stage 16 of the Giro d’Italia today that saw Primoz Roglic abandon the race and Juan Ayuso tumble out of contention.

Christian Scaroni won the stage from Piazzo sul Brenta to San Valentino out of breakaway, crossing the line arm in arm with XDS Astana team-mate Lorenzo Fortunato after 203 gruelling kilometres that included 4,900 metres of climbing, but the drama was all behind the leading pair.

Pre-race favourite and 2023 winner Roglic climbed into his Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe car after crashing during a wet start to the stage that also saw Wales’s stage-two winner Josh Tarling and Alessio Martinelli abandon the race, the latter falling down a ravine.

Ayuso, who was expected to be Roglic’s main rival, cracked on the penultimate climb, going on to ship almost 15 minutes, and team-mate Del Toro found himself exposed on the Passo San Valentino as Yates and then Richard Carapaz attacked.

Carapaz, who was also caught in the early incident that did for Roglic, burst free with a devastating attack that perhaps marks him out as the main threat in the final days of the race, and Del Toro was left alone as Yates then made his own move to get within a few seconds of pink.