The Montoso climb brought to life the Giro peloton as Miguel Angel Lopez attacked taking the likes of Vincenzo Nibali and Richard Carapaz with him.
Primoz Roglic held stock initially but then Landa attacked next with Lopez following the Basque rider as it began to get loose among the favourites. This duo made a temporary alliance to escape a reduced bunch of favourites towards the peak of the climb.
Lopez and Landa crossed the line with nearly 30 seconds in hand over the rest of the GC hopefuls.
“We all worked, except Roglic,” Nibali said. “I worked, Yates did turns, all the big guys in the move worked except him.”
“He can do that because he’s got a decent lead. He knows he’s got the final time trial, too, and so he’s defending his lead but tomorrow will be more of a direct race off,”
“It wasn’t a very hard stage, but it was difficult. It was a fast day, hard to understand. There were some interesting things going on. We gave a bit of space to Lopez and Landa, but in the end it was OK because all the best riders were chasing together behind.”
“Tomorrow is another big day and all the weekend is hard. I feel good. I don’t know what I’ll do. We’ll see tomorrow,” he said.
