Giro d'Italia Stage 14 - Finally mountains and Hesjedal regains the lead

Today's stage: The first summit finish of this year's race. Big mountains, welcome to the Giro, a little later than normal.

Who won today's stage? Andrey Amador (Movistar) got in his third breakaway of the race and used a daredevil descent from the first major climb and was the only man with any energy left at the end to take a 3 man sprint over Jan Barta (NetApp) and Alessandro de Marchi (Androni Giocattoli).

What matters in the GC race? Former leader Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin-Barracuda) regained the pink jersey with a well-timed attack of the GC favorites. He finished 4^th on the stage and gained 26 seconds on Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) and the rest of the favorites.

What matters in the other competitions? - Today and tomorrow other obligations mean this section will be incomplete as some contenders are still on the course as I write and the results are tabulated slowly by the race organizers.

Red Jersey (Points) – Currently unknown. Other than leader Mark Cavendish (Team Sky), most of the other sprinters went home after yesterday's stage. As I right, Cavendish is still on the course and in danger of either missing the time cut or not finishing at all. No matter, Rodriguez is likely the leader here either in reality or virtually as there is no way Cavendish is going to hold him off in the mountains. More on this tomorrow.

Blue Jersey (King of the Mountains) – Amador and Barta took top points today. It is unclear who holds the jersey. More on this tomorrow as well.

White Jersey (Best Young Rider) – Damiano Caruso (Liquigas) burned himself up working for teammate Ivan Basso. This allowed the Team Sky pair of Rigoberto Uran and Sergio Henao to pass him in the standings here. Uran is the leader, as he was for much of the race last year.

Team Classification – Considering there are many riders still on the course, nobody has any idea how this category looks right now though Astana and Team Sky are the best bets. More on this later.

Biggest surprise: Sandy Casar (FDJ) followed his great performance in the breakaway a couple of days ago by showing some climbing legs and finishing with the GC group. Given he has now survived a summit finish and is in 4^th place, he looks like a possible top 5-top 10 finisher. He certainly won't get anymore breakaway leash.

Biggest disappointment: The politics of Astana. It had been fairly obvious for awhile now that Roman Krueziger is not going to win his coveted Giro d'Italia. He collapses in bad weather in the mountains, every year, and every year, there is at leas one rainy mountain stage. Krueziger was dropped by the GC group today on the final climb. At the same time, teammate Paulo Tiralongo has alreaady won a mountain stage in this year's race and was in front of Krueziger in the overall standings entering the day. When Hesjedal attacked, Tiralongo looked like the only guy with the legs to go with him but had to wait for Krueziger until Krueziger cracked. Now, there is a question of leadership because Krueziger is the big money guy. There shouldn't be. Tiralongo should be the leader with Krueziger in the super domestique role. Will it happen like that? I have no idea.

Other items of note: In California, we finally had a road stage where Peter Sagan (Liquigas) didn't win. Of course that is because the breakaway actually succeeded with Sylvain Georges (Ag2r-La Mondiale) taking the stage win. Of course Sagan won the sprint easily to take second.

What is coming tomorrow? More climbing. Four categorized climbs with a category 1 climb at the midway point and a summit finish atop a category 2 climb. Expect the GC men to be out in full force again, especially after climbing lots today and a rest day on Monday.