Brandon McNulty denies Ben Healy in thrilling finale to stage 15 at the Giro d'Italia

In a thrilling, tactical finale to stage 15 of the Giro d'Italia, Brandon McNulty took the win in a sprint finish ahead of Ben Healy and Marco Frigo for his first Grand Tour stage win.

The route of the 15th stage of the Giro d'Italia goes through some of the roads of Il Lombardia. The climbs of Valico di Valcava, Selvino and Valpiana all expected to be important on the day, making the selections for the win. Colle Aperto, a short hilltop was also to be ridden before the finish in the scenic city where the decisive attack can be made. It's a day in Lombardia with 4000 meters of climbing to end the second week.

Again a relatively large group went clear early on. 15 riders in total with the notable names involved including prior stage winner, Ben Healy, Bauke Mollema, Davide Ballerini and Alberto Dainese. Best placed in the general classification was Astana rider Simone Velasco at 15:33.

Einer Rubio and Martin Marcellusi made a late move to try and join the break and after a massive effort Rubio was successful. Notably as well, Rubio at only 11:04 down was now the best-placed rider in the break.

Reaching the first climb of the day, the break held a lead pushing 6 minutes ahead of a Groupama - FDJ led peloton with Marcellusi still somewhere in between, not giving up on his breakaway dream.

Finally, after a brilliant fight, the Italian joined up with the break taken the tally of the leading group up to 17 riders.

As the break began the ascent of the second climb of the day, Marcellusi was the first rider put into difficulty, perhaps unsurprisingly after his massive effort just to get in there. The Italian began yo-yo-ing off the back.

With Ben Healy beating Einer Rubio to the top of both of the first two climbs, the pair put themselves firmly into King of the Mountains contention.

The third climb of the day was again a battle between Healy and Rubio with a photo finish needed to determine which had timed their push to the line to perfection. Rubio took it and moved just two points behind Pinot in third in the KotM standings.

With around 46km to go, Niccolò Bonifazio launched an attack off the front of the breakaway, riding clear before the start of the final climb and quickly gaining a 30 second advantage.

As the climbing began, Bonifazio's lead had extended to 1:20. Not a pure climber however, the breakaway didn't seem all that worried.

As the attacking began at the front of the race through the likes of Healy, Rubio, Brandon McNulty and Marco Frigo, Bonifazio was quickly caught and passed.

Meanwhile, in the peloton, Jumbo-Visma showed their face at the front of the peloton.

Ben Healy was looking supreme as he danced on the peddles and began to creep away from his rivals and as they crested the top of the climb he led by 13 seconds ahead of McNulty and 34 of Frigo and nearly seven minutes on the peloton.

On the descent, McNulty managed to bridge the gap to the Irishman. At the end of the descent, the leading duo had around 30 seconds on the chasing Frigo.

With just over 10km to go, Frigo finally regained contact with the leading duo.

McNulty made a testing attack with 7km to go but it eventually led to nothing.

The first real attack came with 3.5km to go and it was Ben Healy. The EF Education-EasyPost rider was unable to get rid of McNulty although Frigo couldn't match him.

Going into the final kilometre Frigo was still 10 seconds behind but as the leaders played cat-and-mouse he caught and overtook them.

In a thrilling finale, all three riders gave absolutely everything and it was UAE Team Emirates's McNulty that took a narrow victory.

In the GC battle behind, the Maglia Rosa, Bruno Armirail was dropped on the final rise as Joao Almeida made an attack. Primoz Roglic, Andreas Leknessund and Geraint Thomas, Damiano Caruso and Eddie Dunbar were all right on his wheel.

Missing from the elite group was Lennard Kamna, Thibaut Pinot and Hugh Carthy who looked set to lose some time. By the line though the gap was at most a couple of seconds and around 25 seconds later, Armirail came home, keeping his lead.

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