When a trivial accident such as a puncture gives rise to one of the most spectacular actions that will remain in the memory of this Giro: protagonist Alberto Contador who remains stranded on the Aprica descent and sees about twenty riders dart away wearing many blue Astana jerseys and the white one of Aru. There are also the Katushas pulling full throttle to launch Trofimov. All allied against the Spanish master. At the foot of Mortirolo the Giro seems to reopen because in the only flat stretch of the stage before the ascent to the Montagna di Pantani the pink jersey has only Rogers to lend him a hand.
Up front they go all out, it's no longer time for fair play and the Spaniard is isolated when Rogers also gives in. The flagship of Tinkoff-Saxo then calls to help Kreuziger who was in Aru's group. But the gap doesn't go down, on the contrary it goes up around the minute. Contador doesn't lose his temper but the expenditure of energy could cut off anyone's legs on the first breathtaking slopes of the Mortirolo. But not to Contador who is a champion.
And here is the Pistolero, looking at the summit, stepping on the pedal, attacking with all his strength to tame the mountain. As a gentleman he thanks Kreuziger and begins the hunt for whoever is in front of him. And they are many. Contador reaches one, two, three, ten, twenty: a spectacle to see him overtake, lengthen and then humanely catch his breath for a moment before setting off again on slopes approaching 20%. He too suffers but the mission is not yet accomplished even when he overtakes Konig, Hesjedal, Trofimov and Amador. In front there are still Aru escorted by Landa and a tough Dutchman, Steven Kruijswijk.
The pink jersey is relentless, hairpin after hairpin (and there are 31 on the Mortirolo) reducing the gap to the leaders of the race. Halfway up the hill Contador swoops down on the leading trio. Pinto's Madrid player looks at the faces of Aru and Landa as if he wanted to check up on his two rivals. He stays with them for a few hundred meters and then shoots again. It is the essence of cycling, flags don't count, here it is the champion who enchants. An action that recalls that of Pantani in Oropa in the 1999 Giro, when the Pirate from the back of the group where he had ended up at the start of the climb due to a jump in the chain, went up the entire Giro until he fell and even jumped over an annihilated Jalabert who thought he was have the stage in your pocket.
But yesterday when everyone was expecting the solo, Contador more and more master of the Giro, he gave up being master of the stage as well. He too seemed satisfied with the show offered, above all after having ascertained Aru's growing difficulties, overwhelmed by fatigue, unable to keep the wheels of the pink jersey. A profound crisis that transformed the Mortirolo into an ordeal for the Sardinian, so much so that Astana ordered Landa to do his race and the young Basque, an actor's face rather than a cyclist's, so much so that you can't read any trace of suffering, it didn't take long, Aru abandoned to his fate, to reach Contador.
The same hook was achieved by the ever more surprising Kruijswijk, who passed the Mortirolo first, ahead of Contador and Landa. The Dutchman collected a large amount of points for the blue jersey that he will wear on arrival as leader of the climbers. Hesjedal and Trofimov passed just over a minute away. More detached by almost two minutes Aru. Contador was always going downhill, followed by Krujiswijk while Landa remained constantly behind also to try to stem Aru's defaillance.
On the final ascent to Aprica, with gasping Aru who was still losing ground, surprisingly, at just under three kilometres, after an exchange with Contador who allegedly challenged him "if you feel like it, go ahead ”, Landa took the words of his most famous compatriot literally and took flight towards the second consecutive victory. Contador left Kruijswijk the place of honor, settling for third place 38” from Landa. Trofimov and Amador followed at 2'03” ahead of 7” Ryder Hesjedal, the winner of the 2012 Giro who has been tenaciously looking for a stage victory for days.
Aru finished seventh at 2'51”: a defeat that the Sardinian proudly tried to limit by reaching the top of Aprica exhausted. But Mortirolo's response was merciless: from today the leader of Astana, also due to his formidable grimpeur skills, is Landa, who jumped to second place in the standings at 4'02” from Contador while Aru recedes to third at 4' 52". A stage of great cycling that will be remembered by Contador's masterpiece on the Mortirolo but which leaves many regrets in the Astana house for not having immediately bet on Landa, whose uphill power seems even greater than that of Contador himself.
Four minutes are a lot, but they are practically the delay accumulated by the Basque in the disastrous time trial of Valdobbiadene. In the mountains so far Landa has always nibbled on something from Contador and before Milan the Giro is awaited by many peaks that put adrenaline on the young Iberian, Aru's squire until yesterday. It is obvious that after fixing Aru, Contador will study tactics to repel Landa as well. It will be a good match between Cervinia and Sestrière. And if Contador on the Mortirolo recalled the Pirate in Oropa, with the two consecutive victories Landa also repeated the same exploit of the young Pantani who in 1994 repeated the success obtained the day before in Lienz at Aprica.
The last point to add to a fantastic stage concerns the time taken by Contador to climb Mortirolo: 45'07”. Given the feat of the Pistolero, it should be a historical record: nope! Ivan Gotti, who was certainly not a top player among the grimpeurs of world cycling, despite having won two Giros (but one, in 1999, is that of Pantani's disqualification), climbed the Mortirolo in 1996 using as much as 2'27" in less than Contador. Even better than the time set by Pantani in 1994. This is enough to suspect what magic potions cycling in the nineties generally resorted to.
