Giro d'Italia Stage 9 – Contador's eruption blows field apart

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 double climb up Mount Etna, Europe's most active volcano and the first major mountain test of this year's Giro.

Alberto Contador gives his trademark pistol salute at the finish of his Giro d'Italia Stage 9 win.
Photo courtesy of universalsports.com

Who won today's stage? Alberto Contador attacked halfway up the finishing climb to Mount Etna and gobbled up the breakaway and everyone else on his way to the stage victory and the race lead.

What matters in the GC race? Contador took the lead and very well might have won the whole thing today. Nobody has the legs to stay with him or the attacking talent he has. Only a crash or a terrible off day where Contador cracks will stop him now. As it turns out, yesterday's fears of a totally in form Contador appear to have come true. Former leader Peter Weening dropped off the front of the lead group not long before the Contador attack and dropped to to 32^nd overall, likely to not be heard from again in this race unless he gets himself in a breakaway. Favorites Joaquim Rodriguez and Denis Menchov cracked, surrendering over three minutes each. Especially for Rodriguez, this means a race of stage hunting only as he is an awful time trialist.

Biggest surprise of the day: The other GC favorites let Contador attack first. Unless you can stay with his superhuman accelerations (Andy Schleck and nobody else), the only way to even consider stopping Contador when he is at full strength is to attack him constantly and never give him any help. The other GC favorites, most of who do not race against Contador at the Tour de France, did not realize this and paid for it, dearly.

Biggest disappointment of the day: Not only did hometown riding Vincenzo Nibali not have anything for Contador, he was unable dislodge anyone else and surrendered the eight second time bonus for thrid place as well.

Other items of note: Michele Scarponi put in a brilliant effort to stay with Contador's first attack but was unable to stay with him when he unleashed another attack. The Contador of this race looked a lot more like the Contador of 2007-2009 than the 2010 version that was nearly beaten by Schleck at the Tour de France.

What is coming tomorrow? Rest day tomorrow before getting back to racing on Tuesday.

Other cycling news: The rest of the peloton that is not in Italy is at the Tour of California where the opening stage in the mountains was snowed out. Brief updates about that race, airing daily on Versus, will be found here through the finish of that race on Sunday.