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The Italian surprised many yesterday when he rolled across the line on Stage 16 just 37 seconds adrift of race winner Rohan Dennis (BMC Racing).
Not known as a specialist against the clock, Aru had also found himself short of form throughout this Giro, starting the day almost 25 minutes down on race leader Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott).
So when the Italian finished the stage in sixth many asked questions around the performance.
After the race had concluded, chief commissiare of the race Randall Shafer announced that the UCI judges had decided to dock Aru of 20 seconds due to the illegal drafting of a police motorbike. This decision was taken after a review of various television images.
Away from the dubious performance of Aru, the race for pink went against the predictions of many with Yates withstanding the assaults of Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) to maintain a 56-second lead.
Meanwhile, a solid ride from Chris Froome (Team Sky) saw the Brit move to fourth on GC, 39 seconds behind Domenico Pozzovivo (Bahrain-Merida) with five stages remaining.
Yates has been outstanding in the 101st edition of La Corsa Rosa. With the exception of the flat opening road stage in Israel, the 25-year-old has not finished lower than 34th place in two weeks' of racing. He has three stage wins, gifted team-mate Esteban Chaves another on Mount Etna, and came a few breaths short of Chris Froome on the fearsome Zoncolan.
In fact, the only of his GC rivals to whom he has conceded any time at any point in the race is the defending champion Dumoulin, to whom he limited his losses to just 20 seconds in the opening time trial – setting the tone for a series of colossal performances thereafter.
Aware of Dumoulin's superiority against the clock, Yates has ridden to take seconds wherever possible ever since – and will enter the all-important 34.2km ITT on Tuesday with 2'11" to play with.
His performances have not been without their critics, mind. By finishing behind Froome on Monte Zoncolan, the sceptics raised their eyebrows at a British one-two from two riders with well documented asthma problems on the hardest ascent in Europe. (Yates, if you remember, sat out a four-month ban in 2015 for "non-intentional doping" over a doctor's TUE mix-up for an inhaler.)
Meanwhile, the outspoken French trainer and anti-doping campaigner Antoine Vayer described his performance in Stage 15 as Riccardo Ricco-esque and drew parallels between the Bury-born rider and Messrs Pantani, Indurain and Simoni, followed by an ellipsis of heavy inference…
Even his biggest rival has been caught unawares by Yates's unexpectedly strong race.
But even the doubters cannot take anything away from Yates' tactical nous and the consistent support he has received from his excellent Mitchelton-Scott team. Can he go the distance? It will be hard, but Yates and his team are looking the best equipped to pulling off an historic win.
Let's go through each of the remaining stages and make a dramatic prediction as to who will win this thrilling edition of the Giro d'Italia.
Looking back at the only other time trial the pair have ridden together this year, Dumoulin finished 18 seconds clear in Abu Dhabi over 12.6km (adjusted up to 49 seconds over Tuesday's 34.2km).
In 2016, Dumoulin's advantage in the Paris-Nice 6.1km prologue was 19 seconds (+106 seconds). In the 2015 Tour de France at Utrecht the gap was 38 seconds over 13.8km (+94 seconds) and in Paris-Nice that year, over 6.7km, it was 28 seconds (+143 seconds).
The only shoddy comparisons we can make from last year is taking Dumoulin's effort in the Giro's deciding time trial in Monza (33'23" over 29.3km) set against Yates' effort in Marseille in stage 20 of the Tour (29'49" over 22.5km). That works out at a 6'04" (or 364-second) swing.
