Giro d'Italia 2011, stage 16 photo gallery by Graham Watson>>
Alberto Contador won his second stage of this year's Giro d'Italia by storming to a convincing win on stage 16's individual time trial on Tuesday.
The Spaniard recorded only the 14th best time at the intermediate split, 13 seconds slower than Liquigas's Vincenzo Nibali, but as the road steepened, the Saxo Bank leader brought his superior climbing skills into play and tapped out a 34-second lead over Nibali by the finish.
Movistar's Branislau Samoilau set a decent marker for the 12.7km stage of 29-54, which held up for some time, but as the bigger names started to come home, led by HTC's Marco Pinotti - the man who had worn the race's first pink leader's jersey more than two weeks ago - who bested Samoilau by just a second.
But it was short-lived as Stefano Garzelli (Acqua e Sapone), clad in a green skinsuit as leader of the mountains competition, set a new best time of 29-41.
The race's best young rider, Astana's Roman Kreuziger, then went close, but Garzelli's time was only beaten by Jose Rujano (Androni Giocattoli) - by seven seconds - who was one of only a handful of riders to plump for clip-on tri bars, with riders choosing to ride road bikes rather than their time-trial bikes due to the amount of climbing on the stage.
Nibali then dipped just inside Rujano's time by five seconds, followed by Lampre's Michele Scarponi, who wasn't quite able to better his compatriot's time.
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Top British finisher was David Millar (Garmin-Cervelo) in 24th, 1-56 behind Contador.
Last man out Contador, in his pink babygro-esque leader's skinsuit, looked way out of contention at the intermediate split but, like Rujano, charged up the hill to make up the deficit, and consolidated his lead in this Giro, now leading Scarponi by almost five miniutes, with Nibali in third, 5-45 down.
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