Giro d'Italia: Alberto Contador extends lead as Mikel Landa wins

Mikel Landa launched his stage winning attack just over 500m out

Alberto Contador extended his overall lead of the Giro d’Italia as Mikel Landa climbed to a solo victory on stage 15’s summit finish at Madonna di Campiglio.

Landa (Astana), Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo), Fabio Aru (Astana) and Yuri Trofimov (Katusha) rode into the final 1km as a lead quartet after a breakneck pace had seen the rest of the peloton dropped.

Landa then attacked with just over 500m remaining and hung on to beat Trofimov into second place by two seconds, Contador into third by five seconds and Aru into fourth by six seconds.

Contador picked up six bonus seconds on the stage – four at the finish line and two at an intermediate sprint – and consequently stretches his lead at the top of the general classification over second-placed Aru to 2min 35sec.

Andrey Amador (Movistar) remains third overall, 4min 19sec down, after finishing sixth on the day, while the stage’s biggest movers were Trofimov, who climbed from 13th to sixth, and Leopold Konig (Team Sky), who rose from 10th to fifth by finishing seventh.

Alberto Contador added another seven seconds to his lead over Fabio Aru

Landa said: "We have a very good team on the climbs and today, for us, it was the best part of the Giro. We didn't want to let that victory get away from us. It was a bit nervous in the final kilometre because Trofimov went, but Alberto was looking at Fabio and that gave me the opportunity to go for it."

Contador briefly distanced Aru with an attack just under 3km from the finish, but he was closed down by Landa and then seemed content to mark his closest rival all the way to the finish.

Contador said: "At one time it felt like a team time trial [Astana's pace-setting on the final climb]. We couldn't really have got any faster because it was a crazy rhythm. It was quite complicated to control, but I looked after Aru and thought about the general classification. There is still a long way to go."

Rigoberto Uran (Etixx - Quick-Step) and Richie Porte both once again suffered bad days, losing eight minutes and 27 minutes respectively after being dropped on the penultimate climb.

Monday is the Giro's second rest day, but the race will resume on Tuesday with a mountainous 177km 16th stage from Pinzolo to Aprica.

Stage 15 result

1 Mikel Landa (Esp) Astana, 4:22:35
2 Yuri Trofimov (Rus) Katusha, +2secs
3 Alberto Contador (Esp) Tinkoff-Saxo, +5
4 Fabio Aru (Ita) Astana, +6
5 Steven Kruijswijk (Ned) LottoNL-Jumbo, +38
6 Andrey Amador (Cos) Movistar, +42
7 Leopold Konig (Cze) Team Sky, +1:00
8 Tanel Kangert (Est) Astana, +1:10
9 Alexandre Geniez (Fra) FDJ.fr, +1:49
10 Damiano Caruso (Ita) BMC Racing, +2:13

General classification

1 Alberto Contador (Esp) Tinkoff-Saxo, 60:01:34
2 Fabio Aru (Ita) Astana, +2:35
3 Andrey Amador (Cos) Movistar, +4:19
4 Mikel Landa (Esp) Astana, +4:46
5 Leopold Konig (Cze) Team Sky, +6:36
6 Yuri Trofimov (Rus) Katusha, +6:58
7 Damiano Caruso (Ita) BMC Racing, +7:10
8 Maxime Monfort (Bel) Lotto Soudal, +8:20
9 Giovanni Visconti (Ita) Movistar, +9:53
10 Alexandre Geniez (Fra) FDJ.fr, +10:03