Today's
stage: A simple little medium mountain stage, the likes of which
normally eliminate a few sprinters and guys in bad form before the
finish. But this is the Giro. There are climbs with 15% gradients in
these medium mountain stages. Ouch.
Who
won today's stage? Miguel
Rubiano (Androni Gioccatoli) got in the early breakaway looking for
King of the Mountain points. He attacked on all the climbs and went
completely free on the last one, soloing home from 25 km away to win
the stage alone.
What
matters in the GC race? The favorites were, as usual by this
point in the race, unaffected. That said, former leader Ramunas
Navardauskas (Garmin-Barracuda) was dropped from the peloton about
2/3 of the way through the stage. As a result, the new leader is
Adriano Malori (Lampre) who was in the breakaway and finished second
on the stage. His stay in pink will be brief. Malori is a good time
trialer (Italian national champion), but is bad in the mountains (see
finishing with the worst overall time in last year's Giro climb
fest).
Biggest
surprise: Garmin didn't take up the chase earlier and allowed
Liquigas to set the pace in the peloton. With the top four on GC
including the main GC hope, most would expect Garmin to be the pace
setter. Instead, it was Liquigas on behalf of Ivan Basso doing the
work for some odd reason.
Biggest
disappointment: Mark Cavendish (Team Sky) and Matt Goss (Orica
GreenEdge) have no sprint rivals left. Tyler Farrar (Garmin) crashed
out of the race and Thor Hushovd (BMC) and Romain Felliu
(Vacansoliel) both abandoned as well. With Theo Bos (Rabobank) also
not in good shape, that leaves few rivals for the top two.
Other
items of note: The
breakaway had a ridiculous 16 riders in it that slowly was whittled
down throughout the stage... Pablo Lastras (Movistar) also crashed
and was forced to abandon the race... The rest of the cycling world
is in California where the tour of California gets underway on
Sunday. Even with the Giro still in progress, Tour de France prep has
begun.
What
is coming tomorrow? More
medium mountains, but it's time for the GC men to come out of
anonymity. Tomorrow is a finish atop the category 2 Rocca di Cambio.
Joaquin Rodriguez (Katusha) is made for these kinds of finishes and
will be looking to take a few seconds out of his rivals.
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