Here's the GC after today's stage. So it looks like a few potential high GC finishers profitted well in the big escape a couple of days ago. Arroyo, Petrov and Sella all climbed pretty respectably today and might have an outside shot at the podium. Noe and the Lampre riders will almost certainly be sacrificed for Di Luca and Cunego as was pretty apparent today.

Of the battle of the new Italian stars Ricco looked real good while Nibali was not very good today which may have been due to working for Di Luca. It was nice to see Mayo put in a decent ride today as well. Popovych and Savoldelli look to be useful team leaders although making the podium will be a pretty big ask for either one. Pellizotti is quietly looking good in Di Luca's shadow. Other than Dave Z., Garzelli was probably the poorest performer of potential GC guys.

1 Andrea Noe' (Ita) Liquigas 46.06.09
2 Marzio Bruseghin (Ita) Lampre - Fondital 1.08
3 David Arroyo Duran (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne 1.15
4 Francisco Javier Vila Errandonea (Spa) Lampre - Fondital 1.38
5 Evgeni Petrov (Rus) Tinkoff Credit System 1.48
6 Emanuele Sella (Ita) Ceramica Panaria - Navigare 2.04
7 Serguei Yakovlev (Kaz) Astana 2.06
8 Danilo Di Luca (Ita) Liquigas 2.58
9 Marco Pinotti (Ita) T-Mobile Team 3.11
10 José Luis Rubiera Vigil (Spa) Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team 3.22
11 Franco Pellizotti (Ita) Liquigas 4.03
12 Andy Schleck (Lux) Team CSC 4.04
13 Damiano Cunego (Ita) Lampre - Fondital 4.29
14 Leonardo Piepoli (Ita) Saunier Duval - Prodir 4.32
15 Paolo Savoldelli (Ita) Astana 4.40
16 Riccardo Ricco (Ita) Saunier Duval - Prodir 5.06
17 Mario Aerts (Bel) Predictor - Lotto 5.20
18 Gilberto Simoni (Ita) Saunier Duval - Prodir 5.24
19 Yaroslav Popovych (Ukr) Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team 5.27
20 Dario David Cioni (Ita) Predictor - Lotto 5.44
21 Eddy Mazzoleni (Ita) Astana 5.51
22 Rinaldo Nocentini (Ita) AG2r Prévoyance 6.07
23 Stefano Garzelli (Ita) Acqua & Sapone - Caffe Mokambo 6.24
24 Iban Mayo Diez (Spa) Saunier Duval - Prodir 6.52
25 William Walker (Aus) Rabobank 6.57
26 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas 7.09

Saunier Duval has a kick-ass climbing team -- Ricco, Piepoli, Mayo, Gibo. Of course they paid the price for running a slim team at the TTT as Gibo is still about a minute down on Cunego and two and a half minutes down on DiLuca. Schleck is still the guy to keep an eye on, I don't care how young he is. Remember Cunego won the Giro at age 22. I'm still impressed how Savoldelli held it together to cross the line with Ricco and a couple of seconds in front of Cunego.

This is really turning out to be a great Giro so far. No extra terrestrials present. :)

Schleck is still the guy to keep an eye on, I don't care how young he is.

I'm in denial over Schleck since I opted in favor of Sella for my fantasy team :)

I'm in denial over Schleck since I opted in favor of Sella for my fantasy team :)

The way Schleck attacked up that climb (he attacked too early, but the kid is a rookie, so let's cut him slack) to chase Piepoli was impressive. And he didn't blow up and got bonus seconds at the line. Will be curious to see how he time trials, although riding for CSC he has to be at least an average time trialist.

I know you like Sella but I don't see him doing much (as in Giros past), but he'll stage hunt here and there. I do like seeing that look of a madman on his face when his shades are off and he's attacking!

I thought today's stage was tailor made for Di Luca. He should have taken a lot more than 9 seconds from the other contenders. Edit: oops, only saw the earlier results, looks like he put in more time to a bunch of guys. Not so bad after all.

Where was Piepoli for the first ten years of his career? The guy is 35 and just started getting big results in the last couple years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_Piepoli

I agree that the giro has been very interesting so far, but I see the big separations coming on stage 12 and 13. I think a lot of these guys will be OTB on stage 12. I'd be surprised to see Sella hit the finish with the front group on that day. Too much extended climbing. Maybe Schleck if he's really got the form.

"Where was Piepoli for the first ten years of his career? The guy is 35 and just started getting big results in the last couple years."

I think Piepoli is one of these guys who finally figured out a way to win that suits his characterstics. He loses times so he isn't a threat on GC and saves himself for these mountain top finishes where he attacks early so he gets an advantage while all the favorites mark one another.

"I'd be surprised to see Sella hit the finish with the front group on that day."

Sella could probably do more but he is rides impetuously. He's been on the attack several times rather than just sitting in and marking the other favorites. Sure the long breakaway was good for him, but he's wasted energy in a least 2 or 3 other fruitless attacks.

He did get 10th a couple of years ago, although I think they may have come largely by gaining a good bit on a long breakaway, IIRC.

Other than Schleck I couldn't see who else to pick (I debated on Mazanti a little bit). Many of the more promising GC threats will be sacrificed for their leaders, although I did pick Pellizotti and Ricco.

So for my GC/Mountain guys I have:

Simoni
Savoldelli
Di Luca
Popovych
Ricco
Pellizotti
Sella
Cunego
Garzelli

Only Garzelli didn't score for me today. He's a guy that I didn't have much faith in for the podium, but he is a team leader and he can sprint. So I figured he might be good for those days where the field gets down to a couple of dozen riders and you never know, he is a proven GC performer in the past.

Garzelli hasn't been a big threat for years now, his best years are well behind and he always suffers a lot on grand tours nowadays so I expected him to fall behind a bit and he will probably lose more time when harder stages arrive. He can aim for a top 10 GC at best.

Gibo was fine, I think he is being careful and keeping his energy for the stages he knows can help him gain much more time, we'll see but I hope to see him attack on the serious mountain stages. DiLuca on the other hand was very good but I doubt he will stay that strong all the way to the end. Gibo starts his Giros slowly and ends stronger, DiLuca starts strong then tries to limit the damage in the end.

Cunego looked like he was the one having the hardest time among the contenders, hope he will find his winning legs back before the last week if he wants to podium in Milano... Cunego was my personal favorite for the overall but Gibo looks better right now.

Isn't fun to have an opened race where we don't already know the winner?

I think the winner will be crowned Sunday and a few minutes here or there doesn't matter much now.

[QUOTE=Dan Gerous]Cunego looked like he was the one having the hardest time among the contenders, hope he will find his winning legs back before the last week if he wants to podium in Milano... Cunego was my personal favorite for the overall but Gibo looks better right now.[QUOTE]

I agree, Cunego looks like he's having a real suffer-fest just to hang in with the lead guys. Did you see how he grabbed the fence to stay upright as soon as he crossed the line? Maybe he has something up his sleeve, maybe he's still building form, but he hasn't attacked once, and he's rarely dancing on the pedals like we normally see -- maybe this is an older and wiser Kid who is trying to conserve power for the stages where the time gaps really matter. In L-B-L he attacked rather early then hung in to get seventh place, not as explosive in L-B-L as in 2006. It also doesn't help that his Lampre team is not as strong in the climbing domestique department as Saunier or Liquigas -- those guys are really ripping it up on the climbs. When DiLuca and then Gibo went, that effectively isolated Cunego, and he had to pull the remaining GC guys in the final 2 km.