"On the last climb I saw they were beginning to play against each other, so I attacked."

Those were the words of Astana's Mikel Landa after winning his second stage at the 2015 Giro d'Italia. Landa and his teammates were riding at full speed before the penultimate climb to defend his and Fabio Aru's General Classification spots.

At the start of the mountain stage in Pinzolo, Aru was second overall behind race leader Alberto Contador of Spain at 2:35, with Landa fourth at 4:46. Teammates Luis Leon Sanchez, Dario Cataldo and Paolo Tiralongo led the climb after Team Katusha finished working, and helped to bring Aru and Landa partially up the 13km Passo del Mortirolo.

Aru suffered on the Mortirolo and Landa followed as Contador and Kruijswijk created a late breakaway halfway up the mountain. After the summit Landa waited behind his fellow escapees to attack with 3km to go on the final climb into Aprica.

Landa finished 38 seconds ahead of his rivals and moved into second place overall, 4:02 behind Contador. Aru leads the Best Young Rider Classification and is now third overall, :50 behind Landa.

"I don't know yet," he said when asked whether he was now the team leader. "I still haven't seen the General Classification. We have to see how my legs are. I'm know I'm second overall, but I don't know the times with respect to Contador. We'll see how Fabio recovers: it would be good if the two of us could work together against Contador.
 

"To tell you the truth, I had a lot of respect for Aprica. There are sidewinds in the valley, and the gradient isn't very high, so it doesn't really suit me. We tried to force the pace before the Mortirolo to make Alberto suffer so that catching us would cost him energy. After Alberto had caught us, I saw that Aru wasn't strong, they told me to go ahead and try to win the stage. The rest, you know.

"If I'd come as a leader, it's possible I wouldn't have achieved anything at all. You never know. This situation is new for me, what's happened has happened, and we'll see how it ends."