Mikel Landa has never stopped hoping that one day he will be able to compete on the highest spot on the final podium of the Giro d'Italia. But as the 32-year-old Basque himself said on his rest day in Pescara this past Monday, 2022 may be the year he actually pulls it off.

It's not just that Landa survived the first week of being out of GC contention or out of the race altogether in 2017 and 2021.

Historically, things have never been better for Landa, as at this point in the Giro's first week of rest, Landa is in seventh place, 29 seconds behind.

Even in 2015, when he finished on the podium behind Alberto Contador and Fabio Aru, things were not so promising.

Then on stage 9, Landa lost time on the Abetone climb, and although fourth overall, he was 48 seconds behind leader Contador; in 2016, Landa ran his best time trial ever in Chianti, and even then, Maria Rosa's 1:18 behind Gianluca Brambilla.

But in 2022, despite two crashes in the Blockhaus stage, it was a different story for the Bahrain Victorious leader.

"But nothing too serious," he added during a rest day press conference. 'The crash basically means that I wasn't able to run aggressively in the finale.' Let's hope yesterday was the last day of bad luck."

"I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to run the race," he said.

Even if he felt the effects of his crash at Brockhaus and was "pedaling weird," as he put it Sunday evening, Landa said he was "happy with the result" of fourth on the stage.

More importantly, he and Romain Bardet (Team DSM) were the only two riders able to keep up with Richard Carapace's all-out attack with 4.5km to go before the stage-deciding small group sprint.

"Nobody wanted to take too many risks. The wind changed direction a lot and it was the first big mountain stage where there was a GC contender, so nobody knew what they could do on the climb. So for me, I went with the biggest contender, Carapas, and tried to get away from him."

After the blockhouse, Landa said that Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) and stage winner Jai Hindley (Team DSM) were also top GC contenders, but strongly suggested that Calapaz was the key contender in the race at this point.

As for Landa himself, however, he reaffirmed on Monday what he had already told Cycling News before the Giro, that winning the overall was still a "dream."

"I've been dreaming about it for years," Landa said, adding that the only Grand Tour podium of his career began with the now distant 2015 Giro.

"But in previous Giro's, my rivals were stronger than me or there were too many stones in my path. But this time, so far so good. This year is the year."

Landa's best career result at the 2019 Giro, fourth overall, came in the year that his then-Movistar teammate Carapas won the GC outright. This year, however, with the two moving to different teams, Landa has a different take on the race.

"We could win, we're up there in the mountains, and there aren't many time trials left.

"If I could wear the pink jersey for just one day, it would be a dream come true. Yesterday [Sunday] was a good day and a bad day at the same time. So let's keep dreaming."