Chris Froome takes Queen Stage and Pink Jersey in Shock Attack

Froome attacked on the Finestre with 80 kms to go to solo over the the climbs of Sestriere and Monte Jafferu in monumental Queen Stage as Yates cracked on the lower slopes of the Finestre

Incredible, shocking, dumfounding, momentus!

Froome attacked all his rivals halfway up the Finestre and rode away. Behind Dumoulin, Pinot, Lopez and Carapaz worked together to chase him down. The Pink Jersey wearer Simon Yates has already cracked, his lost over 15 minutes after cresting the climb of the Finestre, his jersey and podium ambitions obliterated.

Froome descended the Finestre all out and open up the gap even further.

Dumoulin was forced to chase, working with Pinot, Lopez and Carapaz helping, but on the final climb of the Jafferu, Pinoit attack Dumoulin and Lopez attacked Carapaz in the batlle for the white Jerey!

Behind Carapaz and Lopez battled for the White Jersey followed by Pinoit and behind an exhausted Dumoulin limited his loses.

Fellow Briton Simon Yates cracked spectacularly on the lower slopes of the Finestre to cross the line almost 39 minutes behind Froome and tumble out of contention down to 18th overall.

"I don't think I've ever attacked with 80 km's to go like that before, on my own, going all the way to the finish," he said. "The team did such a fantastic job to set that up for me. It was gonna take something really special today to first get rid of Simon (Yates) and then get away from (Tom) Dumoulin and (Domenico) Pozzovivo. 

"To go from fourth to first, I wasn't gonna do that on the last climb alone so I had to try from far out and the Col de la Finestre was the place to do it."

"Gravel roads, I guess it reminds me a bit of riding on the roads back in Africa," he said. "It just felt good and it was now or never, I had to try."

With one mountain stage to go, Froome has a lead of 40 seconds on second-placed Dumoulin.

"It's great. Obviously still a really hard day tomorrow but the legs have been feeling good and I've been feeling better and better as this race is going on. Even today out front I gave it everything but I also tried to stay within my limits. Hopefully we can finish this off now tomorrow."

Stage 20 again is another hard mountain top finish. The stage begins in Susa, and ends in the Ski Resort of Cervinia, a long 214 kilometers, in terribly hard terrain. At the start of the stage is a relatively flat for 140 kilometers, before the stage turns into slaughter.

The first climb, the Colle secore, 16.4 km long at an average gradient of 7.5%, up to 1,617 metres. The peloton descends down to the same level to hit the second climb of the Col de Saint Pantaleon which is 16.4 km long at an average gradient of 7.4%, back up to 1,670 metres. Immediately after there is a steep fast descent before the final mountain finish up to Cervinia, which is 15.2 km long, with an average slope of 5.7%. The stage feature in total around 48 kilometers of climbing.

Can Froome defend the Pink Jersey? Will Dumoulin attack?

VIDEO: 2018 Giro d'Italia Stage 19 Highlights

2018 Giro d'Italia Stage 19 Top 10

1 Chris Froome (GBr) Team Sky 5:12:26 
2 Richard Carapaz (Ecu) Movistar Team 0:03:00 
3 Thibaut Pinot (Fra) Groupama-FDJ 0:03:07 
4 Miguel Angel Lopez (Col) Astana Pro Team 0:03:12 
5 Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Team Sunweb 0:03:23 
6 Sébastien Reichenbach (Swi) Groupama-FDJ 0:06:13 
7 Davide Formolo (Ita) Bora-Hansgrohe 0:08:22 
8 Sam Oomen (Ned) Team Sunweb 0:08:23 
9 Patrick Konrad (Aut) Bora-Hansgrohe   
10 Pello Bilbao (Spa) Astana Pro Team

2018 Giro d'Italia GC after Stage 19

1 Chris Froome (GBr) Team Sky 80:21:59 
2 Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Team Sunweb 0:00:40 
3 Thibaut Pinot (Fra) Groupama-FDJ 0:04:17 
4 Miguel Angel Lopez (Col) Astana Pro Team 0:04:57 
5 Richard Carapaz (Ecu) Movistar Team 0:05:44 
6 Domenico Pozzovivo (Ita) Bahrain-Merida 0:08:03 
7 Pello Bilbao (Spa) Astana Pro Team 0:11:08 
8 Patrick Konrad (Aut) Bora-Hansgrohe 0:12:19 
9 George Bennett (NZl) LottoNL-Jumbo 0:12:35 
10 Sam Oomen (Ned) Team Sunweb 0:14:18