Fabio Aru (UAE Team Emirates) has abandoned the Vuelta a España. The Italian, who was in 54th place overall after stage 12, missed the start of Friday's 13th stage from Bilbao to Los Machucos.

Alu abandoned the race on the advice of the UAE Team Emirates medical team.

"The analysis done with the team's medical staff showed that there was strong muscle damage that would not recover with effort.

"The situation has worsened and together with the team's medical staff we have decided to suspend the race and carry out further checks. It is unfortunate that we have to pull out, but given the situation it is unthinkable to continue."

The Vuelta, which he won in 2015, was his second Grand Tour since returning to competition after undergoing surgery in April to repair a narrowing of the iliac artery in his left leg.

After returning to the peloton at the GP Città di Lugano in June, Aru competed in the Tour de Suisse, the Italian Championship road race, and the Tour de France, finishing 14th overall.

Jeroen Swart, medical director of UAE Team Emirates, commented that Aru had fully recovered from surgery, but "increased fatigue" and "considerable muscle damage" had forced his withdrawal from the Vuelta.

"Fabio has clinically recovered from the surgery he underwent," Swarto told Tuttobiciweb. 'He has been training well over the last few months and the data collected shows his progress.'

"He arrived at the Vuelta in very good condition, but during the race he did not perform as expected: he had to deal with increasing fatigue, which was very damaging to his muscles, and as a result he decided to stop.

"To analyze his training data, we will carry out all the routine texts that we normally do, and to gather more information, we will perform the following physiological tests once a month.

Aru's Vuelta campaign got off to a bad start in the first stage of the team time trial when he hit a wet road surface and was involved in a pile-up involving most of the UAE team.

On stage 2, he was part of the surprise GC that led Nairo Quintana to a stage win and recovered to finish 5th. He also finished eighth in the summit finish of Alto Mas de la Costa on stage 7 with teammate Taddei Pogachar (currently fifth overall).