Mikel Landa wins in the Alps, Alberto Contador extends lead

Landa, the 25-year-old climber from Fabio Aru’s Astana team, edged ahead of Russian Yuri Trofimov (Katusha) in the closing moments of the 165km stage from Marostica to take the first Grand Tour scalp of his career.

Tinkoff-Saxo's Contador finished in third place five seconds back, and one second ahead of Aru. Six further bonus seconds means the Spaniard increased his lead over his Italian rival to 2:35 on the general classification.

Costa Rica's Andre Amador (Movistar) finished 42 seconds down in third place to conserve his third place on GC, 4:19 down on Contador. Landa's victory saw him move up to fourth place, 4:46 down.

“I was a bit nervous in the final kilometre but I saw that Alberto was more concerned with Fabio so I took my chance,” said Landa, who added a second stage win for Astana after victory for veteran Paolo Tiralongo last week.

“We have a very good team for the climbs and this is the best part of the Giro for us now. We want to finish with Aru in the highest place. It will be difficult, but we will try.”

TEN-MAN BREAK: After a fast start to the stage, a group of 10 riders formed after Spaniard Benat Intxausti (Movistar) picked up maximum KOM points on the Cat.2 climb to La Fricca to extend his lead in the blue jersey mountains competition.

Stage 8 winner Intxausti was joined by team-mate Giovanni Visconti, stage 11 winner Ilnur Zacharin (Katusha), veteran Sergio Paulinho (Tinkoff-Saxo), Kanstantsin Siutsou (Team Sky), Ag2R-La Mondiale pair Hubert Dupont and Matteo Montaguti, Diego Rosa (Astana), Francesco Gavazzi (Southeast) and Brent Bookwalter (BMC).

The group opened up a maximum gap of three minutes over the Astana-led peloton until some infighting resulted in Siutsou, Visconti, Bookwalter and Dupont riding clear inside the final 60km with back-to-back first category climbs looming.

The gap had come down to just over two minutes at the start of the Passo Daone with Gavazzi the remaining escapee chasing down the leaders.

CONTADOR ISOLATED: With Astana controlling the tempo in the peloton, Contador soon found himself with just one team-mate in Australian veteran Mick Rogers.

Both Richie Porte (Team Sky) and Rigoberto Uran (Etixx-QuickStep) followed up their disappointing individual time trials by being dropped on the steep 11% segment of the climb as the maglia rosa group whittled itself down to around 30 riders.

Gavazzi and Bookwalter were both soon caught by the pack, but the remaining trio crossed the summit with a lead of 1:40 as Intxausti sprinted clear to take the points for fourth place.

A crash involving Darwin Atapuma (BMC) and Roman Kreuziger (Tinkoff-Saxo) held up much of the chasing pack on the descent, and Contador started the final 15.5km climb deprived of any Tinkoff-Saxo team-mates.

Despite being outnumbered, Contador had still caught Astana napping at the second intermediate sprint moments ahead of the climb by powering clear to take second place after Dupont to take some vital bonus seconds.

ASTANA POWER: But Contador’s isolation looked to come into play at the business end of the stage when Aru, in the white jersey as best young rider, could sit on his rival’s wheel while a sea of baby blue drove the streamlined pack up the final climb.

Andrey Zeits, Paolo Tiralongo and Tanel Kangert peeled off one by one as Astana swept up Dupont and whittled the leading group down to just eight riders.

Amador, Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNL-Jumbo), Alexandre Geniez (FDJ) and Leopold Konig – Sky’s main man for the GC following Porte’s demise – were all there until Landa lit the torch paper with 3km remaining as the riders passed over the cobbled streets of the Madonna di Campiglio resort.

Just four riders now stood a chance of becoming the first winner here since the late Marco Pantani in 1999 - the first and last time the Giro visited Madonna di Campiglio. Defending champion Pantani was thrown off the race the day after his last professional victory in Italy due to excessive haematocrit levels.

On Landa’s cue, Contador and Aru exchanged a series of blows to distance Trofimov. But the Russian fought back as the road levelled out before taking advantage of the stalemate to open up a gap in the final kilometre.

CONTADOR IN CONTROL: 31-year-old Russian Trofimov looked to be en route to the biggest win of his career before Landa finally took the initiative and attacked with three-hundred metres remaining.

With both Contador and Aru shadow boxing, Landa swept past Trofimov and took the win by two seconds. Contador then outkicked Aru to take third place and the final bonus seconds.

“At one time it felt like we were riding a team time trial. The pace was crazy but I was able to look after Aru when the attacks finally came,” said Contador, who denied he had gifted the win to his compatriot.

“Of course, I was most concerned with Aru, but I didn’t let him [Landa] beat me. Mikel Landa won the stage – and I take my hat off to him.”

While the final duel was underwhelming, the devastation behind was widespread. Kreuziger finished more than five minutes down alongside Jurgen van den Broeck, the Belgian rider from Lotto-Soudal who drops out of the top five.

Uran finished a whole eight minutes down to plummet out of the top ten while Porte’s miserable Giro continued when the Tasmanian rolled home in a group more than 27 minutes in arrears.

Team Sky's focus will now shift to Czech climber Konig, who finished seventh on the stage to rise to fifth on GC, 6:36 down on the summit.

Following a much needed rest day on Monday the 98th Giro d’Italia continues on Tuesday with the 174km stage 16 from Pinzolo to Aprica, which features five Alpine peaks including the Cat.3 summit finish.