Yup. He's not closing that. But if he ends the day with less than 2:00, that'll be reasonable.

2:39 for Land and Thomas.

Jungels looks like he is jettisoned from the top group. Are Doumoulin and Nibali still in there? Do I see Woods in there in the top 11.

Teejay just exploded....bummer...Zakarin off the back now...I see the Cdale rider with him is Formolo? Doumoulin still hanging on these steepest grades?

Maglia Rosa to Quintana?

Nibali gets into the TT posiiton on a 10% grade and counters attacks from Quintana and Pinot!!!

The entire giro just detonated. Nibali has to take the first Italian stage win for the home crowd on their 100th Giro

Interesting that Quintana is riding a high variability strategy and Nibali just maybe ups his effort by 5-10% and gradually closes each attack

Kind of surprised Movistar is revealing Quintana's numbers. Showing 477W last time they showed it on screen.

Great ride by Dumoulin and Pinot. Dumoulin is now officially a climber. With his TT skill, he's a threat to Quintana.

when you are the king by a long margin, you really aren't afraid what everyone else is doing
I guess the fact that there aren't so many true mountain top finishes should aid Dumoulin. Wonder how much time Dumoulin would take from Quintana.

I'm thinking perhaps 2:15-2:45?

Lots of TTing left and final day is Monza to Milano. Quintana will need to explode Dumoulin in the Dolomites or this thing will be super close.

If Quintana was doing 477W was Dumoulin pushing close to 600W at that moment in time?

Didn't show Dumoulin's at the time, wasn't in the same group. It was one of the steep sections where he was pulling away from Nibali and Pinot.

I wonder how much time Quintana will have on Dumoulin going into the final stage? This could be very entertaining.

---

"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

With the amount of TTing left, I would think Quintana would need 3-3.5 min of buffer generated in the mountains to be sure of the win. What do you think?

Lots of TTing left and final day is Monza to Milano. Quintana will need to explode Dumoulin in the Dolomites or this thing will be super close.[/quote]
I wonder how much time Quintana will have on Dumoulin going into the final stage? This could be very entertaining.[/quote]

With the amount of TTing left, I would think Quintana would need 3-3.5 min of buffer generated in the mountains to be sure of the win. What do you think?[/quote]

2 ITTs left, tuesdays (stage 10)is 39.8k with a few hills; last stage is 29.3k slight downhill.
Certainly the 10th stage will favour Dumuolin, he'll prolly win the pink by a minute or so.
But Quintana looked like a beast today on the Blockhaus, and didn't look like he was suffering much.
The last week has a lot of climbing, this gonna be epic!

I hope they fire that motocop

---

res, non verba

C'Dale really lighting up this race, Tejay going for the reverse breakaway, and an amazing ride by Dumoulin who will likely take the lead after the first TT. The question remains can he hang on in the final week? I do wonder if Sky now tries to burn up Quintana before the tour.

The best way to have done that was for Thomas to have been in contention on the mountain stages, with Quintana having to bury himself in advance of the TT's. Having said that, Dumoulin seems like Sky should pay Dumoulin a massive bonus if he can keep the heat on Quintana and stay within 2 min before the final stage ITT from Monza to Milano. If Dumoulin can do that, Quintana should have burned a lot of matches prior to LeTour. I am not sure what Sky can do right now to burn Quintana's legs aside from some some of surprise ambush where they catch Movistar napping and Thomas gains back 3+ minutes.

Between the two ITT's, Dumoulin might take back 3-3.5 minutes. But on the last stage, it will be tough for Dumoulin to take back more than 90 seconds.

Shame about Thomas, Landa, and Yates today, but sometimes stuff happens. Still plenty of GC contenders and a lot of racing left to go though. Should be entertaining.

---

"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

With crashes like this one involving a moto at a critical juncture in the race it would seem to make sense that a commissar could step up and neutralize things for a finite amount of time, maybe a minute or two. That way, riders who can stay in the race has an opportunity to get back on and back in and are not screwed by some external factor. Pretty subjective, and they would probably have to see the accident as it occurred, or have a race official watching on tv communicate with them quickly, but really does suck that this sort of thing sends a guy home or out of contention. Thomas, Yates- this was such a critical time for these guys and they're effectively out of the GC. And there was a time when guys would pull up and neutralize themselves. I don't blame the various DS for being pissed at Movistar.

As for Cannondale, or Tejay or really anyone else in the race, they're doing what they can with what they have. Not sure why that's up for ridicule Formolo was top 10, 90 seconds behind Nibali, and ahead of Kruijswijk, a GC favorite. Mission accomplished. Tejay finished with Jungels. He was never going to factor in this kind of climb anyway. Lots of guys got popped and we're only a third of the way through the race.

OK, I'm not ridiculing, just disappointed. Tejay finished 16 seconds behind Jungels. If he'd finished around 2 minutes back, I could put a positive spin on it. 3:46 and 17th is bad. It looked like Hermans had to slow up to pace Tejay to the line. It was a bad day, full stop.

Same with Formolo. He's not a TT guy, so not sure what the end-game is. Finishing top-10 GC? I'd prefer Cannondale go for a stage win or two (which Formolo was the last to do) rather than finish 4-5 places off the GC podium. That way they'd be doing a lot more for their sponsors and the confidence of their riders. In my opinion.

I didn't see your post. I was looking at another. Cannondale is still going for stages. That's always been the plan, and it was a shot for Formolo yesterday. But everyone has a plan until they're punched in the face, right? The Rolland in the break thing turned out to be a huge waste of energy. Movistar simply dominated the stage and the Cannondale DS, who doesn't have a team full of fans maybe should have known that they wouldn't let Rolland get too far up the road. Tejay- I give the guy credit for still trying to hang as a GC guy. He's got a lot of pride. He takes a lot of crap, but he brings a lot of it on himself too. Hermans will get to ride now.
Overall with Cannondale, I think they're riding aggressively and taking their shots, with nothing to lose going up against Sky and Movistar. I can't fault them for that. They rode the same in the one days.

So ITT is up tomorrow, any predictions? Dumoulin takes pink?

I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that Dumoulin will be in pink after tomorrow.

Pinot will be very close though. And Quintana won't lose that much time, although he could be in 4th (behind Mollema).

Should make for a good last week for the Giro.

---

"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that Dumoulin will be in pink after tomorrow.


The main GC contenders are now out on the ITT course (nearly 40km - with an uphill finish), and at this point Dumoulin, based on time, is in virtual Pink! But Quintana, may be fastest over the closing few kilometers which is uphill.

Who will take this?

---

---

Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Great call on Dumoulin. Takes the Stage win and the pink jersey.

Fill badly for Thomas - if not for the crash with the moto the other day, he would be right in the mix. Clearly he has the legs as he finished a strong second today in the ITT.

Dumolin now up by 2:23 in GC, but the other top 8 - 9 behind him still reasonably bunched. There are still some savage, mountain states to go in this Giro and anything can happen!

---

---

Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

How would a rival team use this number to their advantage?