Tour de France Stage 12 - Breakaway victory for Millar saves Garmin's Tour

Today's stage: The traditional transition stage leaving one of the big mountain ranges and headed to the other.

Who won today's stage? David Millar (Garmin-Sharp) won a two-up sprint against Jean-Christophe Peraud (AG2R La Mondiale) after the two of them and three others escaped early on the two big climbs to start the day.

What matters in the GC race? Nothing, nothing at all. Everyone finished in a bunch nearly 8 minutes behind the breakaway. No movement on this stage.

What matters in other competitions?

Green Jersey (Points) – Matt Goss (Orica-GreenEdge) beat Peter Sagan (Liquigas) in a sprint for 6^th place to cut a few points off of Sagan's lead. Sagan still leads the competition though. UPDATE: Goss was relegated for cutting Sagan off making Sagan's lead huge in this competition. That is a big swing of points.

Polka Dot Jersey (King of the Mountains) – No changes here. The breakaway absorbed all the major points along the way and nobody really cared to go for the lesser points on the early category one climbs after emptying the tank yesterday. Fredrik Kessiakoff (Astana) retains the polka dots.

White Jersey (Best Young Rider) – Tejay van Garderen (BMC) still leads Thiabult Pinot (FDJ) by 1'54”. To update from yesterday, Rein Taaramae is now 3^rd in this category (he was still on the road when I posted yesterday). He is now 23'50” behind van Garderen.

Team Classification (Calculated by adding the three best times on each team each day) – RSNT still leads by over 12 minutes. The only threat will be from Team Sky if their Time Trialers who slow pedaled in the first TT go all out in the final TT.

Biggest surprise: No surprises. This was destined to be a breakaway and it was. Those two early category one climbs made it so.

Biggest disappointment: There was no chase by the sprinters. On stages like this, it gets really dull really quick if the sprinters don't want to chase and after Peter Sagan was was brought back to the group by Matt Goss and Orica-GreenEdge, there was no need to chase. Nobody wanted to use the energy on a non-sure thing and tomorrow is a sure sprint stage.

Other items of note: Millar's win salvaged a miserable Tour for Garmin where nothing had gone right (owing mostly to that huge crash on stage six). Now Rabobank and Vacansoleil are the big losers of this Tour. Rabobank is now down to four riders after more abandonments overnight. As for Vacansoleil, they are down to five but expectations weren't nearly as high. Their young rider Wout Poels who was seriously injured in the stage 6 crash was transferred back to the Netherlands today and remains in stable condition. For these three crash-riddle teams, there are different goals upcoming. Garmin already got its huge win for the season at the Giro d'Italia, winning the overall with Ryder Hesjedal (who abandoned the Tour after the stage 6 crash). Vacansoleil head to the Vuelta bringing Thomas de Ghent, 3^rd overall and the Queen Stage winner at the Giro. Meanwhile, Rabobank's season is in shambles. They were not up to par in the Ardennes classics including the home Amstel Gold and they put all their Grand Tour eggs in the Tour and they all cracked in the crash. Now they head to the Vuelta and need everything to go well to salvage their season. Gesink will be there and I expect Mollema will be there as well. Still, this season has been a mess for them.

What is coming tomorrow? Sprinter stage and they won't let the breakaway get away entirely with so few breakaway chances.

Tomorrow's prediction: 1. Andre Greipel (Lotto-Belisol) 2. Matt Goss (Orica-GreenEdge) 3. Mark Cavendish (Team Sky)

Giro d'Italia Daily - Team Time Trial Day

Today's stage: Team time trial. One of the most important early stages as it helps shape the pecking order much more than even the short Individual Time Trial on Stage 1.

Who won today's stage? Garmin-Barracuda took the stage as expected (that team specializes in the TTT) over surprising Katusha by five seconds. Everyone else was a bit further back.

What matters in the GC race? Lots. In the short tern, Ramunas Navardauskas (Garmin) took the leader's pink jersey after his team's stage win. The other big winners on the day were Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin) and Joaquin Rodriguez (Katusha). Both took about 20-30 seconds on their GC rivals.

Biggest surprise: Katusha's ride was completely shocking. Rodriguez is known as a terrible time trialist and the team had to keep him all the way through or kill its GC hopes. Finishing second by only five seconds is a huge surprise, especially without a ton of big name cronomen on the roster.

Biggest disappointment: Team Sky was tipped by many as one of the favorites for the stage (behind Garmin of course). The team underperformed today finishing ninth on the stage and losing 30 seconds to Garmin.

Other items of note: Taylor Phinney (BMC) did start and finish the stage today, but his team finished 10^th, 31 seconds back ending his time in the pink jersey. Third place Alex Rasmussen (Garmin) was dropped early by his team meaning he got whatever his time was crossing the finish line. This is also what allowed Navardauskas to take the pink jersey.

What is coming tomorrow? Another sprint stage. Tomorrow might actually be the flattest 200 km stage I've ever seen in Italy. If Mark Cavendish (Team Sky) is fully recovered from the crash a couple of days ago, expect him to win the stage. If not it will likely be Matt Goss (Orica GreenEdge) or Mark Renshaw (Rabobank).