Mikel Landa (Astana) has threatened to take a big win in this Giro so far after super performances on Abetone and Campitello Matese. Today he attacked late to catch and pass Yury Trimov (Katusha) while Contador was just a few seconds behind, taking more bonus seconds and even taking a second on Aru on the line.

The race got under way in sunny conditions, a blessing for the riders after all the rain they have suffered through this week. It was a really hectic start asa many riders tried to get into the break, giving us a 47 km/h average going up La Fricca.

Many riders tried to get away but eventually Chaves (Orica), Visconti (Movistar) and Zakarin (Katusha) got away on the climb. Chaves was replaced at the front by Visconti’s teammate and mountains leader Intxausti. He took maximum points at La Fricca ahead of his teammate and Zakarin.

On the descent, seven others joined the break: Bookwalter (BMC), Montaguti and Dupont (AG2R), Rosa (Astana), Paulinho (Tinkoff-Saxo), Siutsou (Sky) and Gavazzi (Southeast). They worked well and got a maximum of 3”30 on a Tinkoff-Saxo led bunch.

But Paulinho and Rosa did no work and Visconti attacked and was joined by Dupont, Bookwalter and Siutsou. They build their gap back up to 2”30 by the foot of the Passo Daone while the rest of the break sat up and waited for the bunch. Gavazzi briefly gave just but was swallowed up on the Daone.

Bookwalter was dropped as they hit the tough climb and there was real damage done on the climb in the GC group too, with Porte, Uran, Nieve, Kreuziger, Cataldo all dropped and they wouldn’t return. Over the top, it was the same order for the front three as on La Fricca and Intxausti finished his work for the day by jumping clear of the bunch to beat Betancur and Kruijswijk to take more points.

After the tough descent was done, there were just 14 men in the main group chasing the lead trio: Tiralongo, Aru, Landa, Rosa, Kangert, Caruso, Geniez, Amador, Contador, Konig, Betancur, Kruijswijk, Trofimov and Monfort.

Dupont attacked to be the last man caught from the break while the GC group swallowed up the other two. Then, just before the final climb to Madonna di Campiglio started, Contador emerged from the bunch ahead of Kangert (Astana) to take more bonus seconds behind Dupont.

Once the climb started and Dupont was brought back, Astana headed to the front of the group and began shelling riders one by one: first of all Betancur, Visconti, Caruso, Monfort, Siutsou and Dupont, all dropped by Rosa and Tiralongo. Then, as the riders reached the town of Madonna di Campiglio 3.5km from the line, Kangert ended his work and swung off and Landa made a big attack that only Contador could go with, leaving Aru and Trofimov temporarily distanced and Konig, Geniez, Amador and Kruiswijk would never make it back to the front group.

The four came together before a Contador dig looked to have got rid of Trofimov. The two Astana men and Contador had a lull and Trofimov came from nowhere to race by them. Heading under the flamme rouge, the Russian looked to have taken a big win but Aru and Contador seemed content to mark each other, freeing Landa to chase.

He caught the Russian with 200m to go and flew by him and had time to celebrate a win he has had coming for 14 days now. Trofimov came in 2 seconds back with Contador taking third, 5 seconds behind the winner. Aru lost a second to Contador on the line in addition to the bonus seconds he lost. Kruijswijk rounded out the top five with Amador hot on his tail. Everyone else lost at least a minute and Uran lost eight minutes and Porte a staggering 27 minutes.

Tomorrow is the last rest day before the racing resumes with five mountains on Tuesday, two ascents of Aprica, the Passo del Tonale and the might Mortirolo all included.