He's still here. On losing 27 minutes following his crash at the base of the Blockhaus last Sunday, it appeared as though Mikel Landa's days on this Giro d'Italia were numbered, but the Basque remains in the race and on the hunt for a stage win as the corsa rosa reaches the Alps.
Early on Friday morning, Landa's Team Sky stable-mate Geraint Thomas, a faller in the same crash on the Blockhaus stage, abandoned the Giro, citing the shoulder and, in particular, knee injuries that he had picked up in the incident.
When Thomas recovered sufficiently to place a fine second in the Montefalco time trial, it briefly looked as though he might be able to haul his way back into contention for a place in top five overall, or even the podium. After haemorrhaging time on the two successive days, however, Thomas has left the race, and Sky's sole objective now is to pick up a stage win.
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"It's changed a bit for us now, because we've lost the chance to get a decent place on the general classification," Landa told Cyclingnews. "It's all about trying to win a stage now.
Read more on this article
- Thomas abandons the Giro d'Italia
- Giro d'Italia: Boomerang stage for Landa with long-distance break followed by time loss
- Geraint Thomas: I've worked too hard to give up
- Thomas and Landa cleared of major injury after Giro d'Italia crash
- Brailsford: Landa's Giro d'Italia attack 'keeps them guessing'
- Giro d'Italia: Landa tries to inject chaos with surprise late attack
Landa and Thomas set out from Sardinia two weeks ago as Sky's co-leaders as the British squad sought to shake off its underwhelming track-record in the Giro. Landa's surprise attack on the road to Peschici last Saturday seemed to signal his intentions for the race, but his hopes of bettering his podium finish of 2015 were dashed the moment a police motorbike braked abruptly on the roadside twenty kilometres from the end of stage 9.
Recovery
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