Dunbar stays inside top five after brutally tough stage

Eddie Dunbar remains inside the top five overall at the Giro d'Italia after a brutally tough Queen Stage in the Dolomites on Friday.

Colombia's Santiago Buitrago [Team Bahrain Victorious] crossed the stage 19 finish line at Tre Cime Di Lavaredo in first place while behind him the battle for the overall lead raged on the fifth and final climb of the day.

Corkman Dunbar, riding for Team Jayco AlUla, began the day in fourth on the general classification following a superb climbing performance in Thursday's stage 18.

He dropped a place today to fifth, but he produced a mammoth effort on incredibly demanding terrain.

He's 4:53 down on Britain's Geraint Thomas who took a big step towards winning his first Giro as he avoided any significant time losses to Maglia Rosa rival Primoz Roglic, who is second.

Jumbo-Visma rider Roglic attacked with 1km remaining as the gradients ramped up to around 18% but Thomas [Ineos Grenadiers] responded and looked set to extend his lead, only for a final burst by Roglic seeing him take back three seconds.

Thomas will take a 26-second lead into Saturday's penultimate stage, a steep 18.6km individual time trial.

Portugal's Joao Almeida remains in third place in the general standings but lost time in the final kilometre. Damiano Caruso is fourth, 42 seconds ahead of Dunbar.

Buitrago broke the heart of Derek Gee, accelerating past the Canadian on the final climb to win the stage and leave Gee with his fifth second-placed stage finish of this Giro.

Gee is second in the King of the Mountains standings on 200 points, 36 points ahead of Ireland's Ben Healy [EF Education–EasyPost]. Frenchman Thibaut Pinot leads the way on 228 points.