Giro d'Italia stage 20: Aru wins in Sestriere

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A spectacular final day’s mountain racing in the 2015 Giro d’Italia saw overall leader Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) retain the maglia rosa despite getting dropped by both his closest rivals as Fabio Aru (Astana) raced to his second consecutive stage victory.

Contador saw his closest rivals Aru and Mikel Landa (Astana) go clear on the penultimate ascent, the Colle delle Finestre, and lost well over two minutes by the finale. Following Friday’s victory in Cervinia, Aru soloed away, 1.5 kilometres from the line to beat his closest pursuer Rigoberto Uran (Etixx-Quick Step). Aru simultaneously consolidated his second place overall, whilst Landa, having briefly ripped the Giro d’Italia apart on the Colle delle Finestre, finally settled for completing the podium in third.

Barring absolute disaster on Sunday, though, it was the rider who finished sixth at 2-25 on Aru, Contador, who arguably had most to celebrate. In terms of pure racing, stage 20’s Alpine trek was Contador’s hardest day on the bike in the entire 2015 Giro d’Italia - and yet his overall lead remained in place.

As a result, Contador is now just 24 hours away from winning what the record books state is his seventh Grand Tour victory - although, given two additional titles were lost because of his positive clenbuterol test, the 32-year-old still considers the 2015 Giro d’Italia to be his ninth.

How it happened

Five kilometres from the summit of the Colle delle Finestre, the situation seemed to be under control for Contador, with rivals Astana tapping out a steady, but unthreatening, pace behind lone breakaway Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha). But on an ascent with a relentless nine to 10 per cent slope, first through dense woodland and then on seven kilometres of semi-surfaced dirt tracks, Contador’s grip on the Giro d’Italia came much closer than he would have liked to meltdown.

When Landa launched a blistering attack on the muddy roads leading to the Giro d’Italia’s highest mountain pass, the Madrileño, obviously on an off-day, was unexpectedly unable to chase the Astana rider down. Suddenly after three weeks where his superiority has - dislocated shoulder and crashes notwithstanding - all but been a given, with no Tinkoff-Saxo team-mates to hand to give Contador some much needed support, what could have been a manageable moment lurched painfully near to a crisis.

For the next two kilometres, as Landa powered away alone in search of Zakarin, Contador remained following wheels in the group of half a dozen riders behind, led by Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNL-Jumbo) and Ryder Hesjedal (Cannondale-Garmin). Another move by Aru - behind his own team-mate - left Contador struggling again, behind the group of chasers.

For five kilometres the gap between Landa and Contador yawned ever wider, peaking at 1:30 by the summit of the Finestre as the Spaniard caught the Russian race leader. Meanwhile Aru, too, was 45 seconds ahead of Contador. It was not a disastrous gap, given Aru was 4:37 back and Landa at 5:15 - and Contador evidently had not cracked completely. But any further time loss and there would have been a real danger that the Giro d’Italia could have slipped out of the Tinkoff-Saxo leader’s fingers at the last possible moment.

Fortunately for Contador, a fast, well-surfaced descent of the Finestre did not see any further time gaps open, but with 16 kilometres of false flat then a steady rise to Sestriere left to tackle, and no team support in sight, any weakness in Contador would have been badly exposed.

Instead, on the comparatively much easier slopes the Spaniard gathered up his strength for one last major effort and - impressively - reduced the gap on Landa and Zakarin to just 50 seconds at one point. Though he had one Astana rider, Tanel Kangert, sitting on his back wheel by this point , the tide began to turn back in Contador’s favour even further when the absence of a sustained collaboration between Zakarin and Landa saw their joint move begin to fizzle out.

With the Russian and the Spaniard joined by Aru, Hesjedal, Kruijswijk and Uran, the Astana attack gained fresh impetus. But if Landa had any dreams of upsetting the overall classification at the last possible moment, they were quickly quashed as he found himself working for Aru on the front of the string of six riders.

Two kilometres from the finish Contador began to fade again but it was clear that no attacks would now dismantle the top three places overall. Instead it fell to Aru to break away, dropping first Hesjedal - finally second again on a stage, although his hugely impressive mountain riding in the last week means the Canadian has moved into the top five overall - and then Urán. A few moments later, a second stage for the young Italian was in the bag.

With four mountain top stage wins this week - two for Aru, two for Landa and a fifth thanks to Paolo Tiralongo in the first - as well as second and third overall as well as the best young rider’s jersey, Astana’s crushing hold on the Giro d’Italia’s climbs has netted the Kazakh team rich rewards. Aru’s re-emergence, though, and the seemingly unstoppable rise of Landa, came too late for either to make more than dents in Contador’s armour.

With the glorious benefit of hindsight, Contador losing time to Aru on Friday, not to mention missing the leader’s press conference at the finish will be taken by some as a sign of impending weakness. But the Spaniard explained at the finish that in fact his near-crisis came because he was paying the price for the daily wear and tear of what has been nearly three weeks of leading the Giro d’Italia.

“I’ve paid for the efforts of racing hard each day,” Contador, who took the overall lead as early as stage five and has worn the maglia rosa ever since barring one day, said. “But I knew that I had a good margin on Aru already. It was all about not panicking and concentrating on keeping things under control.”

Barring total disaster on Sunday’s flat stage from Turin to Milan, at the end of what has been a tumultuous race finally looms into sight, Contador’s first part of his bid Giro d’Italia-Tour de France double is therefore, all but in the bag. And his next target, wearing the maillot jaune in Paris, is already on his mind. As he said at the finish, “I will have a good supper tonight, but the build-up for the Tour starts here.”

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