Paul Magnier (Soudal Quick-Step upset the attackers to claim a hat-trick on stage 18 of the 2026 Giro d'Italia. As expected the Muro di Cà del Poggio, which came at 10km to go, proved challenging. The 1.1km ascent and its average gradient of 12.3% meant that the sprinters faced a tough to task to compete for victory in Pieve di Soligo.
But Magnier, and fellow sprinters Edoardo Zambanini (Bahrain-Victorious), who was finished second, and Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek), who rounded out the podium, managed to catch the punchy climbers before the finish.
"I did not expect it to happen today, which makes it even more beautiful," Magnier said at the finish. "I can really thank my team for the confidence. I was not confident this morning. I even dropped on the first climb and then I tried to focus again, and all my teammates stayed around me on the climb and they made it a sprint, so I'm so happy to win here today."
Afonso Eulálio (Bahrain-Victorious) had attacked on the final climb and at one point appeared to be riding away to the stage win, only to be clawed back by Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike) in support of race leader Jonas Vingegaard who led over the summit.
A flurry of attacks ensued in the final 9km of rolling downhill terrain to Pieve di Soligo, with Eulálio again being active, joining a move from Kulset Johannes (Uno-X Mobility), which was only brought back with 1km to go.
It was a deceptively challenging stage in the Prosecco Hills, to the north of Treviso. The day's breakaway included Jonas Geens (Alpecin-Premier Tech), James Shaw (EF Education-EasyPost), Mattia Bais and Andrea Mifsud (Team Polti VisitMalta), but the quartet were never given much of a leash by the peloton, which was controlled by UAE Team Emirates-XRG, Lidl-Trek and NSN. The four leaders stayed away until 22km to go (although a counterattack from Geens kept him from the clutches of the peloton until 10km to go), in doing so they took the majority of the intermediate sprint points in Guia, which came with 36km to go.
In what is proving to be an intriguing battle for the maglia ciclamino, Jhonatan Narváez (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) claimed the remaining 1 point and so, at the time, increased his lead over Magnier. But with Magnier winning the stage, the Soudal Quick-Step rider moved back into the lead in the competition. The Frenchman now leads with 195 points to the Ecuadorian's 158.
Earlier in the day, there was stressful moment for Eulálio. With just under 50km to go, the Portuguese rider crashed in a feedzone. He chased back on, and shrugged off any ill-affects of the crash to launch his attacks in the finale. Eulálio was the most active of the general classification riders, on a day that for many would have hoped to have survived unscathed and without losing any time.
Giro d'Italia 2026 stage 18 results
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