Giro D'Italia 2016: Stage 15 Results, Overall Standings and Highlights

Alexander Foliforov of Gazprom-RusVelo won Sunday's 2016 Giro d'Italia stage, a climbing time trial, but the big winner of Stage 15 was maglia rosa Steven Kruijswijk of Team LottoNL-Jumbo, who finished in the same time as the Russian and significantly increased his lead in the overall standings.  

Astana's Vincenzo Nibali in particular lost minutes on the Dutchman, but Alejandro Valverde (Movistar), Esteban Chaves (Orica-GreenEDGE) and Bob Jungels (Etixx-Quick-Step) all suffered a blow heading into the final week of racing.

Here's a look at the results from Sunday's stage, per Sky Sports Cycling:

Here are the current Giro standings:

Recap

Sunday's climbing time trial up the Alpe di Siusi was expected to shake up the general classification in a big way, pitting the top climbers and contenders for the general classification against the clock on a climb that had the potential to break the riders.

Global Cycling Network highlighted the importance of pacing on a climb like this, urging the riders to find their perfect power output early and not tackle the challenge at hand too hard:

Saturday's difficult stage to Corvara would also play a major role, as the likes of Nibali, Kruijswijk, Chaves and Valverde all had to dig deep, and recovery could make the difference.

Foliforov and Sergey Firsanov, both of Gazprom-RusVelo, set the pace early, occupying the top spots in the provisional standings before the top contenders started their climb.

Per Cycling Today, the race leader set a new record up Alpe di Siusi:

Ilnur Zakarin of Katusha flew up the first section of the climb, which was slightly less troublesome than the rest, while Nibali shockingly lost a handful of seconds on his challengers but appeared to be pacing himself for the steeper sections.

Chaves, Rigoberto Uran (Cannondale) and Rafal Majka (Tinkoff) all lost significant amounts of time during the middle sections, while Kruijswijk, the last rider to start, blew Zakarin's top time at the first split off the table, gaining half a minute on Nibali.

LUK BENIES/Getty Images

The Inner Ring wondered whether his choice of equipment had anything to do with his rapid pace:

Kruijswijk continued his torrid pace, however, even on the steep sections, and ahead of him, his competitors started to struggle. Nibali, the favourite to win this year's Giro, had already lost 46 seconds when he suffered a mechanical. The Shark of Messina had to switch bikes and lost over two minutes at the summit, a disastrous turn of events.

Valverde only lost 23 seconds, a good showing after his poor form on Saturday.

Per Cycling News, Kruijswijk was disappointed not to win the stage:

"

I really wanted to win the stage as well. I finished second yesterday as well. I heard towards the end that I was close to the victory but most importantly I gained time over my rivals on GC. I did everything for that and I'm confident that I'll be able to defend the Maglia Rosa during the last week.

"

The Dutchman is now the clear favourite to win the Giro, although he will be tested in the final week. Unlike Valverde, Nibali and Chaves, he doesn't have a lot of domestiques who can help him in the high mountains, and with all those riders needing to make up minutes in the standings, expect Orica-GreenEDGE, Astana and Movistar to make life hard on the race leader.

The Giro resumes on Tuesday with yet another difficult stage to Andalo, featuring an uphill finish and two tricky climbs before the final stretch. That stage will be followed by two reasonably flat stages, giving the favourites a chance to recover, before the peloton heads into the Alps, where this year's Giro will be decided.

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