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

Alberto Contador produced one of the great rides of his career to extend his overall lead of the Giro d’Italia on a memorable 16th stage won by Mikel Landa.

Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) punctured just before the penultimate climb of the day, the legendary Passo del Mortirolo, and started up its notoriously steep slopes 51 seconds behind his closest rival in the general classification, Fabio Aru (Astana).

But thanks to a magnificent display of climbing, he caught Aru less than half way up the 12.8km ascent, dropped him with a subsequent attack and eventually crested the summit 1min 51sec to the good alongside Landa (Astana) and Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNL-Jumbo).

Although Landa later rode away to victory with an attack on the long but shallow final climb to the summit finish in Aprica, Contador finished third behind Kruijswijk to stretch his lead in the general classification from 2min 35sec to 4min 2sec with five stages remaining.

Landa’s win, his second in a row after Sunday's victory on stage 15, lifted him into second place overall above team-mate Aru, who is now 4min 52sec down on Contador in third after finishing 2min 51sec down on the winner on a chastening day in the Alps.

Contador tweeted: "There are times when a race's plan changes and became more difficult, I like to see it as an opportunity to do something different. I'll remember this day forever."

Landa said: “A really beautiful day for me. On the Mortirolo, Fabio didn’t feel very good and he told me to go with Alberto and Kruijswijk. In the last kilometres they started to play for winning the stage. I started and didn’t know I was so strong.”

Stage 16 contained five categorised climbs, but it was on a short section of flat between the third and fourth where it burst into life, when Contador pulled up with a puncture and Astana broke the unwritten rule of waiting for the race leader by increasing the pace to cut him further adrift.

To complicate matters for Contador, all but one of his team-mates were burnt out by the chase, but it didn't matter, because the 32-year-old went on the attack at the foot of the Mortirolo and tore into one of the toughest ascents in professional cycling, breezing past stragglers from the peloton as he made light work of the average 10.1 per cent gradient.

Aru, meanwhile, was toiling badly and after Contador had caught him and then taken a short rest, the Spaniard attacked once again and instantly opened up a unbridgeable gap.

Aru gave Landa permission to follow, and two became three when they caught Kruijswijk, who had attacked a little earlier and was leading solo.

The trio would not be seen again, and Aru's cause worsened when he punctured just before the final climb and lost more vital time.

Stage 16 result

1 Mikel Landa (Esp) Astana, 5:02:51
2 Steven Kruijswijk (Ned) LottoNL-Jumbo, +38secs
3 Alberto Contador (Esp) Tinkoff-Saxo, same time
4 Yuri Trofimov (Rus) Katusha, +2:03
5 Andrey Amador (Cos) Movistar, st
6 Ryder Hesjedal (Can) Cannondale-Garmin, +2:10
7 Fabio Aru (Ita) Astana, +2:51
8 Damiano Caruso (Ita) BMC Racing, +3:16
9 Leopold Konig (Cze) Team Sky, +3:19
10 Carlos Betancur (Col) Ag2r-La Mondiale, st

General classification

1 Alberto Contador (Esp) Tinkoff-Saxo, 65:04:59
2 Mikel Landa (Esp) Astana, +4:02
3 Fabio Aru (Ita) Astana, +4:52
4 Andrey Amador (Cos) Movistar, +5:48
5 Yuri Trofimov (Rus) Katusha, +8:27
6 Leopold Konig (Cze) Team Sky, +9:21
7 Damiano Caruso (Ita) BMC Racing, +9:52
8 Steven Kruijswijk (Ned) LottoNL-Jumbo, +11:40
9 Alexandre Geniez (Fra) FDJ.fr, +12:48
10 Ryder Hesjedal (Can) Cannondale-Garmin, +12:49