The Giro Update Nobody Asked For

OK, so Woods isn't going to win the Giro in his debut grand tour. But boy oh boy is this race delivering. It's almost more than enough to make me want to take the next two weeks off of work, fly down to Florence, and follow the rest of the race. I guess I won't though. Yesterday was something else. After Quintana had attacked on the Blockhaus climb and taken the race leader's pink jersey just before the rest day, everyone knew that his 30 second lead over 3rd-place time-trial-specialist Tom Dumoulin wasn't safe. The only question was how much time Quintana might lose to Dumoulin in yesterday's time trial and therefore how much work he'd have to do in the mountains to get it back. Wowzers, though: I don't think anyone expected Quintana to lose THREE minutes (well, 2:53 to be exact). Dumoulin had hoped that he might be able to take a minute. He now leads the race, ahead of Quintana by 2:23. Interestingly, that puts 2 Dutchmen in the top 3 (with Bauke Mollema sitting in 3rd 2:38 back). The exciting thing about Dumoulin is that he is a much bigger guy than Quintana and hasn't traditionally been known as a mountain stage guy. He was leading the Vuelta a couple years back for a while on the strength of his TTs and doing OK in the mountains but then when the altitude really pushed up he faded into oblivion. He's now a real GC threat though and had been working on his climbing and on putting his body into the right shape for maybe winning. I think he lost something like 5 kg since last season and even told the media he was worried about how his TT would suffer. Well, worry no more! Dumoulin easily won the TT stage yesterday with 2nd place finisher Geraint Thomas 49 seconds back. If Dumoulin can survive the mountain stage today that will be his first test passed. But then the final week finishes in the treacherous Dollomiten... time will tell.

Woods didn't have a TT that exactly set the world on fire. He finished 144th of 190, 8 minutes slower than Dumoulin. That puts him in 22nd place in the GC (not so bad actually), nearly 16 minutes back. This is nothing too surprising of course, but too bad for Cannondale as their main GC guy Davide Formolo also had a pretty lackluster TT and now sits in 13th over 6 minutes back. The good news here, though, is that since Woods is no longer a GC threat, he will be free to go for a stage win. And today's stage was designed for a breakaway to succeed. A hilly mountain stage with many complicated descents, it will be impossible for any team to control a break (nor would they want to). Could Woods win a grand tour stage today? Doubtful, but maybe! And potentialities are the mother of something...