Mikel Landa abandons Giro d’Italia
Mikel Landa, who bounced back into contention following a strong performance in Sunday’s time trial, pulled out of the Giro d’Italia 2016 after struggling early in Tuesday’s hilly transition stage across Tuscany.
The Team Sky leader, who was third overall at last year’s Giro, was dropped on the first climb of the day, the third-category Passo della Collina, which came just after 20 kilometres. Finding himself over six minutes in arrears, Landa climbed off just shy of the start of the second third-cat climb of Pietracolora over 30km later.
The Spanish climber looked to be on good form coming into the second half of the Giro after a slow start. After posting a strong time trial Sunday, he said in an interview during Monday’s rest day that he was “feeling good and ready to attack.”
Team Sky’s bad luck at the Giro continues, with the team still looking to match and better the second-place finish by Rigoberto Uran in 2013.
Last year, on stage 10 as well, Richie Porte’s hopes of winning the race were ended when he suffered a puncture and was then handed a time penalty for accepting a wheel of an Orica-GreenEdge rider.
