A Second Successive Giro Stage For Aru

01 June 2015 09:56

Fabio Aru of Astana has won stage twenty of the Giro D'Italia for his second successive stage in a row but he could not do anything to stop Alberto Contador who had a bad day from winning the race and his seventh Grand Tour.

The penultimate stage of the 98th edition, saw Albert Contador sitting pretty in pink with a lead of 4.37 over Fabio Aru for a 199km stage from Saint-Vincent to Sestriere.

Julien Berard (AG2R-La Mondiale), Marco Bandiera (Androni Giocattoli), Nicola Boem (Bardiani CSF), Aleksejs Saramotins (IAM Cycling), Diego Ulissi (Lampre-Merida), Jon Izagirre (Movistar), Giacomo Berlato (Nippo VIni Fantini), Matteo Busato (Southeast) and Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha) were in the break and after fifty one kilometres, they were 1.56 ahead.

As the feedzone approached, the gap went out to 2.47 before Nicola Boem took the sprint points.

Zakarin went away as Perazzi shot out of the peloton which was 1.02 behind with 41kms left.

Alberto Contador was in the front group and when Tanel Kangert attacked, he was soon followed by Contador and Stephen Kruijswijk.

Onto the dirt roads and Zakarin was still 1.30 ahead as Ryder Hesjedal came up to join Contador's group which also had Rigoberto Uran and Mikel Landa in it.

Zakarin was only fourteen seconds clear as Landa, Aru and Kangert left Contador on his own and it was Mikel Landa who took the 45 points on the Cima Coppi climb, after getting past the Katusha rider.

Aru's group caught upn to Landa with 8.5kms left and Aru led for the second stage in a row.

With 1.3kms left of the climb up to Sestriere, Aru made his move and away he went on the Colle delle Finestre and won in 5.12.25 to record a second place on the final podium.

Ryder Hesjedal came home seventeen seconds down and 2.24 later, Alberto Contador came home to finish and win the Giro D'Italia, barring a disaster on the final stage in Milan.

"It's incredible," said Aru, the Giro's Young Rider. "After a few bad days and a second place I was delighted to win again. "We decided to go for it again and Landa is a strong guy but I was able to win."

Source: DSG