Giro D'Italia 2015: Stage 15 Results, Overall Standings and Highlights
Astana's Mikel Landa won Stage 15 of the Giro d'Italia in the high mountains, with maglia rosa Alberto Contador finishing only seconds behind in third spot.
The stage had been a classic encounter of climbing and counterpunching—with Contador dominating and driving the leaders from the front of the peloton.
The Giro's official Twitter account confirmed the result:
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Here are the Stage 15 placings, including the updated overall standings, per Sky Sports Cycling:
Sunday's leg saw the riders attack only the second stage in the high mountains—between Marostica and Madonna Di Campiglio—with the challenging Passo Daone climb late in the race.
The Giro's official Twitter account shared the mission at hand:
In the early stages of the race, the peloton kept a strong pace as the leaders attempted to put pressure on the pack behind. But the primary group stayed close together as the first climbs laid ahead.
The first challenge of the day was the La Fricca climb, and as expected, the peloton was left broken, drawn out in a snake from the category two climb. A group of 11 riders attempted to break clear, with Giovanni Visconti pushing hard and Orica GreenEdge rider Esteban Chaves in close pursuit.
Spain's Benat Intxausti also drove ahead of fragmented leadership to find himself level with Visconti. The Movistar Team cyclist has dominated in the mountains and applied the pressure early on.
The Tinkoff-Saxo team joined Contador on the descent to give their top rider support at the front of the peloton—clearly in an attempt to blow away Fabio Aru, who sat second behind their team leader in the overall standings.
Visconti continued to show great form with a third of the race complete, and he retained the lead for the entire period, establishing a three-minute gap. But the peloton started to make inroads into Visconti's lead, halving the gap.
Aru and his Astana team-mates stayed close, with Contador keen to put some distance between himself and his most realistic challenger. The maglia rosa's pace was so good he lost all the members of Tinkoff and tagged himself onto the Astana pack.
The leading group of the peloton had bridged the gap to one minute with 25 kilometres to race, and Contador was starting to look imperious in his strength through the mountains.
With the final big climb of the day—it was the pink jersey versus the five-strong Astana group—the Spaniard produced a rhythm his challengers could not meet. But Aru boldly stuck with Contador through the final climbs to keep himself in contention.
The maglia rosa group then caught Visconti, and the Italian was overtaken with ease. The longtime stage leader tagged himself onto the back of Contador and Aru's group and stayed with them through the latter stages.
One by one, Astana lost members in the front pack, but Aru was beginning to look very comfortable, with Contador sat on his front wheel.
With five kilometres remaining, a game of chess ensued, with Aru and Contador placing themselves perfectly to attack at any moment, with the general pace incredibly high. And with three kilometres left, Contador finally attacked.
Aru could not stick with the legendary rider, and the maglia rosa broke away from the leading group with countryman Landa.
But as the riders hit the final climb, Aru caught Contador and nudged ahead, with the lead changing several times with Landa.
Into the final kilometre, the three leaders were suddenly joined by Yuri Trofimov, who made a surprise attack. But as Aru and Contador faded, Landa pushed past the Russian to pip him at the line, giving Astana a stage win.
Contador finished in third, with Aru just behind.
Astana will be hugely disappointed to not claim a stage win after being the most organised and attacking team of Stage 15. Aru had the best support possible around him, but the strength of Contador intimidated all of the leaders.
Sunday was the stage for Aru to eat into the leader's time, but the maglia rosa finished ahead of the Italian, and there is surely no way back now.
Landa showed great verve to catch Trofimov at the line, but it will be Contador who has the biggest smile as the race takes a well-deserved rest day on Monday.
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