Alberto Contador secures Giro crown as Fabio Aru wins stage 20

Tinkoff-Saxo's Contador cracked under the pressure of Aru's Astana team on the dirt roads of the race’s highest peak but recovered to finish the 199km stage in sixth place, 2min 25sec down on his Italian rival.

Aru's second successive scalp in the Alps saw the 24-year-old Sardinian secure second place in the general classification behind Contador – who will ride into Milan on Sunday to cross the t's and dot the i's of the seventh Grand Tour win of his illustrious career.

Despite being made to dig deep during the final 30km of the last mountain stage of the race, Contador will enter the final processional stage with a lead of 2:02 over Aru.

Another Astana rider, Spaniard Mikel Landa – who crossed the summit of the Colle delle Finestre to secure the fabled Cima Coppi prize – completes the podium at 3:14 after taking fourth place in Sestriere behind resurgent Colombian Rigoberto Uran (Etixx-QuickStep).

Canada's Ryder Hesjedal (Cannondale-Garmin) - besides Aru, arguably the stand-out rider of the third week of the 98th edition of the Giro - finished behind his Italian nemesis for the second day running, 18 seconds in arrears.

Consolation for Hesjedal, the 2012 Giro champion, came in the form of a top five finish on GC, behind Costa Rica's Andre Amador (Movistar), who managed to hold on to fourth place – the best Grand Tour performance of his career.

Amador’s team-mate Giovanni Visconti was distanced on the Colle delle Finestre but held on to the blue mountains jersey despite the presence of Dutch rival Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNL-Jumbo) in the main maglia rosa group.

EARLY BREAK: Nine riders broke clear of the peloton 38km after the start in Saint Vincent to build up a maximum lead of two and a half minutes on the flat opening 150km section of the stage.

The break included three previous stage winners from the race in Diego Ulissi (Lampre-Merida), Illnur Zakarin (Katusha) and Nicola Boem (Bardiani CSF).

But despite its strong pedigree, the break’s gap was reduced to just 45 seconds ahead of the two deciding climbs thanks to the pace-setting duties of both Tinkoff-Saxo and Astana.

Giacomo Berlato (Nippo-VIni Fantini) attacked at the start of the Cat.1 Colle delle Finestre but it was Zakarin who left the most indelible print from the break, catching the Italian on the tight hairpins of the forested section of the climb before soloing clear as the pack swept up the other escapees.

The rangy Russian – whose win last week at Imola capped his overall victory at the Tour of Romandie earlier in the month – opened up a gap of almost two minutes as Italy’s Stefano Pirazzi (Bardiani CSF) managed to evade Astana’s policing on the front of the pack.

CONTADOR CRACKS: A thrilling climb saw Astana whittle the maglia rosa down to half a dozen riders after a succession of attacks by Estonian Tanel Kangert before the start of the dirt track that characterises the second half of the gruelling 18km ascent, famous for its 42 hairpin bends.

The initial blow that did for Contador’s chances of winning an elusive stage came from the double stage-winning legs of Landa, who surged clear 6km from the summit on the unforgiving gravel road and their mixture of mud, rocks, pot holes, pebbles, and dust from the race vehicles.

Contador led the chase alongside Hesjedal, Uran and Kruijswijk as Aru struggled back on. But Landa proved too strong as he rode off in pursuit of lone leader Zakarin. With Landa catching the Russian near the summit, Contador found himself in a pickle when his chasing companions combined to distance the isolated maglia rosa.

Granting no gifts, Landa pipped Zakarin over the summit to take the Cima Coppi prize. Hesjedal, Uran and Aru came over 30 seconds down, with Kruijswijk momentarily distanced. But the gap that mattered was the 1:27 that separated Contador from Landa ahead of the narrow, technical descent to the foot of the final climb.

ASTANA POWER IN NUMBERS: The Aru chasing group joined forces with the leading duo ahead of the final climb, with Contador – who had caught Kangert on the descent – almost two minutes in arrears.

Zakarin was dropped on the final climb 6km before the finish as the leading Astana duo powered a high tempo in the vain hope of overturning Contador’s lead in the overall standings.

And then, in quite bizarre scenes, Landa seemed to go from world beater – and very much odds on favourite to secure his third win of the race – to also-ran in the space of a short message delivered down his earpiece.

Aru, the big Italian favourite, attacked with 2km remaining – and the rest was history.

Hesjedal led the chase but it was too little, too late. Uran put in his strongest performance of the race with a third place finish ahead of a resigned Landa, who ended up losing both the stage and his runners-up berth on GC.

To make matters worse, had Landa finished higher than fourth he would have secured the blue king of the mountains jersey: his fourth place meant the Spaniard trailed Italy’s Visconti by just three points.

Some words of comfort came from Landa’s team-mate, the stage winner.

"I’ve suffered so much in this race and to get a second win and secure second place has been wonderful,” said Aru. Landa was excellent as usual today – he’s a really, really strong guy.”

Having been pushed to the limit, Contador was able to smile and punch the air as he crossed the line. He may have lost 2:25 but it was not enough to deny him a second overall Giro d'Italia win.

Besides the expected bunch sprint, Sunday’s 178km stage 21 from Torino to Milano will also sort out the final undecided jersey of the race: the red sprinter’s points classification currently behind led by Italy’s Giacomo Nizzolo (Trek Factory Racing).