Giro d'Italia: Quintana puts a positive spin on his stage 14 defeat

Nairo Quintana (Movistar) spoke calmly after the finish of the climb to Oropa, hiding behind his sphinx-like poker face as he tried to find the positive aspects to the Giro d'Italia's 14th stage.

There were some – he gained time on Bahrain-Merida's Vincenzo Nibali and FDJ's Thibaut Pinot – but they were far outweighed by Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) chasing down his attack with apparent ease and then blasting away in sight of the line to win the stage and pick up a 10-second time bonus.

Quintana is now 2:47 down on the Dutchman. There is still a lot of hard racing and a lot of climbing to come in the final week of the Giro d'Italia but Dumoulin now has the upper hand both mentally and physically, while Quintana – at least for now – is no longer the strongest climber of the race. El Condor's wings have been clipped by Dumoulin's power and growing confidence.

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Dumoulin's ability to chase down Quintana must have hurt Quintana hard, as did his final kick, which won him the stage and put 14 seconds between the two riders.

"It was a different end than we'd hoped for, we'd hoped to do better on this stage," Quintana admitted.

"I think I made a great attack on the climb but it was not enough. Today we saw Dumoulin's climbing ability. I spent all the strength I had to test my rivals but Dumoulin was really strong red and the climb really well. On the positive side, we fired some time on some of my rivals and we've got to be satisfied with that."

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