Froome crashes out of Vuelta a Espana contention on day of Astana success

Fabio Aru broke clear to win the 11th stage of the Vuelta a Espana ©Getty Images

Italy's Fabio Aru has taken the overall lead of the Vuelta a España after Astana team mate Mikel Landa won a gruelling stage 11 today and Britain's Tour de France champion Chris Froome crashed out of overall contention.

Froome, who had been hoping to become just the third man to win the Tour and Vuelta a Espana in the same year suffered an early crash shortly after the start at Andorra la Vella, cutting his right leg along with injuries to his foot, knee and shoulder.

The Briton battled onto the finish but nine minutes behind the stage winner and 7min30sec behind the overall lead, with there being no realistic prospect of him making up this time.

Further up the road, Spaniard Landa burst clear with nine kilometres to go on a steep summit finish into Cortals d'Encamp, with Aru making precious time up on his fellow overall contenders by placing second.

After Froome's misfortune, Team Sky endured a bittersweet day as United States' Ian Boswell placed third.

Aru, whose Astana team were only awarded a licence to compete this year in April follow several doping cases, now leads second-placed Spaniard Joaquim Rodriguez by 27 seconds in the general classification.

Chris Froome (right) pictured at the beginning of the stage alongside overall classification rival Nairo Quintana, is now out of contention ©AFP/Getty Images

This morning's Dutch leader Tom Dumoulin lies a further three seconds behind in third.

"The team was incredible today," Aru said afterwards.

"This morning we agreed that Landa would go for the stage and he managed to get into the right break and went on to win what was a really difficult stage.

"It was a real demonstration of strength and I'm really happy to be in the leader's jersey.

"There's still 10 stages to go and so we'll take things day by day but we'll try to defend it."

Aru, the 25-year-old who won this year's young rider classification at the Giro d'Italia, has never won a Grand Tour, although is considered an up and coming star who has won several tough mountain stages at both the Giro and the Vuelta.

His success came on another incident-packed day in which Portuguese Tinkoff-Saxo rider Sergio Paulinho was seemingly struck by a motorcycle operated by Spanish television broadcaster RTVE.

After another Tinkoff -Saxi rider in sprinter Peter Sagan was forced to withdraw for the same reason last week, team owner Oleg Tinkov vented his anger on Twitter.

"Sergio Paulinho was hit today by TVE motorcycle and end up at hospital [with] 17 stitches," he posted.

"What a messy and shallow race! They pay us NO money for the race and even damage riders."

Tomorrow's stage is billed as a 173km flat one from Escaldes-Engordany in Andorra to Lleida.