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89th Giro d'Italia - presented by

Stage 7, Cesena - Saltara, 236K

13 May

Dust Devil's Daily Wrap
Statement of Intent

Dust Devil's Daily Wrap, Stage List, Stage Profile, Photos

Wow! Today's stage turned out to be a lot harder than I thought it would be on paper. It almost did come back together at the end, though.

Juan Manuel Garate was the major animator of today's stage. The champion of Spain loves the Giro d'Italia and always shows up with his game face on. But today's move is not the kind of move that you normally expect to see from somebody with designs on the final GC though. Just think, the effort he put out today will cost him dearly. Spending half the day riding his heart out in a break. And tomorrow's stage will likely be as difficult or harder than today. So let's hope he can recover for tomorrow.

And Savoldelli.......Wow! He's riding an aggressive race. I was really pulling for him to reel in Rik Verbrugghe. That would've been a sweet victory!

Everybody managed to fair pretty well on this stage of the GC contenders except for Di Luca. He got dropped straight away on the first climb. Rujano didn't look much better, and faired a lot worse. He doesn't look like someone with the authority to challenge for overall. But, Di Luca managed to limit his losses and end the day only 1'06" down on GC. Which isn't too bad if he can manage to recover a bit before tomorrow. It has to be a serious psychological blow though to be shelled this early in the Giro, and watch all your rivals ride away from you. When you're a contender for overall and Jan Ullrich can ride away from you in his present form on a climb, that has to be painful to endure!

We'll see what tomorrow holds for the new Maglia Rosa Sergei Gonchar. He should be able to defend himself in these early mountains and keep the pink jersey for at least a few days. Tomorrow will be a day to seperate the men from the boys. And the GC big boys will have to come out and make a statement of intent. Let's hope they do anyway. I will pray for an attacking Giro instead of one where everybody rides watching each other and waiting.
~The Dust Devil