Chris Froome would enter the Giro d'Italia as favourite to win the overall race. As the current champion of both the Tour de France and Vuelta a España, Froome had the opportunity to join an elite group of riders who concurrently held all Grand Tour titles. The Giro started in Israel for the first time and before the race had begun Froome had already crashed during a recon of the first stage time trial route. Froome would cede over 30 seconds to main race rival, Tom Dumoulin as well as 20 seconds to Simon Yates. As the race returned to Italian land, Froome found himself over 50 seconds down on the maglia rosa - Rohan Dennis. By the end of stage six, the races first summit finish at the top of Mount Etna Froome had moved up to eighth position overall, but had lost over a minute to new race leader, Yates. By the end of the eighth stage and third mountain-top finish at Gran Sasso d'Italia, Froome trailed Yates by nearly two and a half minutes, with general classification hopes looking all but impossible. Froome's domestiques, Poels and Sergio Henao, were 18th and 25th overall 3' 14 and 5' 56 behind the race leader. By the end of stage 13, Froome had slipped back to 12th overall 3' 20 behind race leader, Yates. Stage 14 would see the riders face the fearsome climb of Monte Zoncolan, with gradients reaching nearly 20%. Froome attacked the main selection of favourites, winning the stage from Yates. Unfortunately however, Froome's improved form would not be maintained into stage 15, with Yates claiming the victory on the medium-mountain stage by a margin of 41 seconds over everyone else. Yates' lead in the race would now grow to 2' 11 over Dumoulin and 4' 52 over Froome - who was now sat in seventh place overall. The time trial on stage 16, from Trento to Rovereto, had been a focus-point for Froome, hoping to claw back significant amounts of time over Yates' by virtue of his stronger time-trialling ability. Froome would cut the deficit to 3' 50 by the end of the stage, having taken back over a minute from Yates. Deep into the third week of the race, stage 18 would see the first sign of weakness from Yates, cracking on the final climb of the day to Prato Nevoso, with the deficit to Dumoulin in second cut to 28 seconds and 3' 22 to Froome. Stage 19 of the 2018-edition of the race had been designated as the races' queen stage, starting in Venaria Reale, the stage would climb over a trio of mountains; the part-gravel Colle delle Finestre, climb to Sestriere ending at Bardonecchia. Yates' poor form continued into stage 19, culminating in him being dropped by the peloton on the lower slopes of the Finestre, promoting Domoulin to virtual race leader. With over 80 kilometres remaining in the stage Froome attacked the peloton on the gravel section of the Finestre, pulling away from the main group of favourites. This attack would continue over the subsequent two climbs with Froome ultimately winning the stage by three minutes from second place Richard Carapaz, but importantly by over 3' 20 from Dumoulin. Froome was now leading the race overall by 40 seconds from Dumoulin with two stages remaining. Froome would maintain his race lead, becoming the fifth rider to simultaneously hold all three grand tour titles. Froome also won the mountains classification largely due to his stage 19 exploits, and Team Sky won the overall team classification.