The Giro d'Italia is one of three Grand Tours on the cycling calendar. It is airing daily on Universal Sports through May 29 and during the race daily recaps can be found here on this blog.
Today's Stage: A long a difficult stage including dirt and gravel roads through the hilly Strade Bianche region of Italy. This year is was raced in sunshine and beautiful conditions as opposed to the mud and rain that marked last year.
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| Peter Weening celebrates his stage victory Thanks to Daily Telegraph for the photo |
Who won today's stage? Peter Weening attacked late in the stage and held on up the final hill as the GC contenders marked each other instead of going for the stage victory.
What matters in the GC race? All of the main contenders were up front today in a select group at the front of the race. Nobody lost any major time. As for the race lead, David Millar cracked on the final hill and lost about two and a half minutes surrendering the pink jersey to Weening. Vincenzo Nibali of Liquigas is best placed of the top contenders in 4th place followed by Michele Scarponi and Alberto Contador.
Biggest surprise of the day: Nobody attacked for the stage win at the end with the leader in sight. Joaquim Rodriguez, who already trails the other contenders because of a bad team time trial, is a bad time trialist and really needs to have a lead of at least two minutes entering the final day time trial to win. This stage seemed tailor made for him, but he didn't attack in search of the victory or the 20 second time bonus that goes with it.
Biggest disappointment of the day: None. All the expected cyclists were there in the end and all did well on a difficult day in the first race day after Wouter Weylandt's death in stage three.
Other items of note: Weylandt's Leopard-Trek team and Garvin-Cervelo sprinter Tyler Farrar (Weylandt's best friend) left the race after the processional fourth stage yesterday.
What is coming tomorrow? A miserable day of rolling hills that a breakaway will likely succeed on. The main contenders won't want to chase anything with the first of seven mountain finishes coming Friday and the sprinters won't really have much of a chance with another uphill finish similar to today's (though not as steep) tomorrow.
Any GC changes tomorrow? I expect the pink jersey to change hands with a successful breakaway tomorrow. Weening's Rabobank team won't want to spend themselves defending it before the mountains. I suspect someone from back in the pack will take about five to seven minutes on the peloton tomorrow to take the jersey and a lead of about a minute, maybe two. That lead will promptly be surrendered when the higher mountains start on Friday.
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