Aru: What can I say, I'm only human

The verdict was already being written up in the sala stampa as Fabio Aru descended from the summit of Gran Sasso d'Italia in a cable car, where he was doubtless hoping to avoid the crew from RAI television who had secured passage in the same cabin.

"Aru, the excuses are over: Think about the Tour," read the banner headline in Tuttobici on Sunday evening, summing up the general feeling that the Italian champion's Giro d'Italia may already be run even before the race has truly begun.

There had been mitigating factors behind much of the time lost by general classification contenders in the opening week of racing in Israel and Sicily, but on the sparse and exposed slopes of Gran Sasso d'Italia, there was no longer any hiding place.

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The pace-making of Aru's former squad Astana and the Mitchelton-Scott team of maglia rosa Simon Yates had already whittled down the leading group by the time the race hit the snow-banked upper reaches of the climb, and Aru was already flagging even before he lost contact with the group with a little over two kilometres to race.

It will be of scant consolation that Chris Froome was distanced at more or less the same point and conceded more or less the same kind of time: for now, at least, the Sky rider is not the Briton to follow on this Giro. Aru crested the summit in 24th place on the stage, some 1:14 down on the stage winner Yates. In the overall standings, he is now 2:36 off the pace in 15th place.

"It didn't go very well," Aru said with considerable understatement after his cable car had reached its terminus in the village of Assergi at the base of the climb. "Today was obviously a negative day for me. My legs weren't turning over well, otherwise, I wouldn't have been dropped.

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