Giro d'Italia 2020 - Was this the day Team Sunweb won or lost the Giro?

As cracks emerged in the Deceuninck Quick-Step camp with outgoing pink jersey Joao Almeida bickering with teammate Fausto Masnada three minutes down the mountain, chinks also appeared in the armour of the Sunweb duo poised to secure a clean sweep of prizes in the Giro's queen stage.

The infernal pace being set by Ineos Grenadiers duo Rohan Dennis and Tao Geoghegan Hart on the Passo dello Stelvio had blown the GC battle to smithereens – but it had also seen Wilco Kelderman, the man set to inherit the pink jersey, start to yo-yo off the back of the leading quartet.

After a gap opened up between him and teammate Jai Hindley shadowing the two Grenadiers, the elastic finally snapped for the Dutchman. With over six kilometres remaining of the race's highest and longest climb, Kelderman's deficit grew out to over 40 seconds as he ploughed a lonely furrow above the snow line.

Poor Hindley was stuck between a rock and a hard place – the rock being the granite obstacle of the indefatigable Australian, the hard place the back wheel of Geoghegan Hart's Pinarello.

Ease up to help pace his teammate back into the fold and Hindley risked seeing both their GC hopes go up in flames while their biggest rival was up the road with a teammate of his own.

So the 24-year-old Australian – or his Sunweb sporting director behind the wheel – gambled: Hindley would stick with Geoghegan Hart to keep his hopes of a stage win alive, in the hope that Kelderman would rally back into contention behind.

To make matters worse, both Sunweb riders experienced a brain-fade in the thinning air of the high-altitude snow-clad peak, the zips of their jackets proving a bridge too far ahead of the long descent to Bormio.

For Hindley, it was a mere struggle to get both arms in his jacket while keeping in touch with the two Ineos pace-setters, the rider from Perth almost losing balance and veering into a wall near the summit as Dennis took the prestigious Cima Coppi prize over the race's highest point.

If Hindley had managed to get his jacket on, then he – like Kelderman behind – also failed to do it up, rendering it rather inadequate in both the insulation and aerodynamism stakes.

"All of the science, all of the planning, and it comes down to putting a coat on," Rob Hatch lamented in the Eurosport commentary box. Kelderman eventually resorted to pulling off his offending garment and angrily discarding it to the ground – a reckless act given the reported -10°C windchill high up in the Tyrolean Alps.

He made it to the bottom with the gap still around the 40-second mark – only to enter a world of pain on the drag towards the foot of the final climb, where Dennis' pacing ahead came into its own. For the Ineos duo were, by contrast, unflappable.

As the gap grew towards two minutes, and Kelderman found himself left for dead by both Jakob Fuglsang and Pello Bilbao, it looked like it wasn't going to be Sunweb's day.

There was an element of Stage 19 of the 2018 Giro about it with the outgoing maglia rosa Almeida in the Simon Yates role, and Kelderman playing the part of compatriot Tom Dumoulin, then of Sunweb, who saw his virtual pink jersey evaporate that day after the epic performance by Chris Froome – here being played by Geoghegan Hart.

But there's no place for Hindley in that analogy, and he still had a key role to play. With his teammate behind, the Australian was under no obligation to set the tempo on the final climb to the Laghi di Cancano. Geoghegan Hart would have known about Bilbao's rally behind, and he would also be aware of his gilt-edged chance to take the pink jersey.

In fact, the Hackney-born tyro was ostensibly already in the virtual pink jersey after taking three bonus seconds at the intermediate sprint to edge one second clear of Hindley in the GC.

Sensing a chance to take his second – and Ineos' sixth – stage win, Geoghegan Hart led out the sprint at the finish, only to be passed by the fresher Hindley, who became the latest Sunweb youngster to win a stage on a Grand Tour in what has been an unexpectedly stellar season for the team. More bonus seconds than the man he denied put Hindley back on top in their GC battle as all eyes then went to the clock counting in Kelderman to see which Sunweb rider it would be in pink.

The result was a fantastic compromise for Sunweb – and put some gloss on what threatened to be a potentially embarrassing day. After what he described as "the hardest day of my life," Kelderman took the pink; Hindley the white and stage win. Just 12 seconds splits them on GC, with Geoghegan Hart a further three seconds back.

The report on Sunweb's website described it as "a phenomenal team ride" and "a truly great day for the team" – an undeniable truth, but far from the whole truth.

Even before Thurday's queen stage, there were rumours of rifts in the Sunweb camp. With Kelderman off to join Bora-Hansgrohe in a matter of months, it goes without saying that an overall win for Hindley would be the more favourable outcome for the team.

Vincenzo Nibali hinted at Hindley being Kelderman's biggest rival earlier in the week, the Shark with a trademark mind game in a bid to add a bit of tension into the Sunweb bus. And when Hindley attacked during the conclusion of Stage 17, it was his teammate who instantly closed the door and dragged the other GC riders back.

And when quizzed at the finish at Langi di Cancano after he did enough to take the pink jersey, Kelderman did not seem best pleased with the tactics of his younger teammate on the Stelvio.

Watching the stage unfold, it was hard to decide if Hindley and Kelderman had collectively pulled off something genius or had combined to be the architects of their eventual own destruction. Entering the stage, Kelderman had a 2'42" advantage over Geoghegan Hart, a lead which has now almost completely evaporated.

Geoghegan Hart is clearly one of the race's in-form riders, his belief growing by the day and his uphill strength backed up by a powerful array of talent at Ineos. There's no knowing the damage they could inflict on Saturday's triple ascent to Sestriere ahead of the final time trial into Milan – but it has the potential to produce a bigger swing in Geoghegan Hart's favour than 15 seconds.

Only time will tell if Stage 18 up the Stelvio was the day Sunweb won, or lost, this Giro.