Today’s stage of the 2007 Giro d’Italia was the toughest of this year’s edition so far. The finish was atop of a brutal climb Tre Cime di Lavaredo. The winner was a young Italian rider Riccardo Riccò
Riccò is a teamate of Gilberto Simon who is trying to win the Giro for a third time in his career. Gibo finished the stage 37 sec down on the current leader Danilo Di Luca, thus losing precious seconds in the GC once again. Simoni is now 3min 19sec behind Di Luca.
Another top GC contender and former Giro winner, Damiano Cunego, lost some time to The Killer as well and is now fifth overall at 3min 23sec. So far, neither Cunego nor Simoni were able to challenge Di Luca at all.
Tomorrow, the riders will take a deserved rest day. Then on Tuesday they will start the final brutal week of this year’s Giro with a 189km stage into the neighboring Austria. And then on the very next day the peloton will face arguably the hardest stage of any 2007 Grand Tours. With four tough climbs spread over 142km the stage will finish atop the fearsome Monte Zoncolan, known as one of the most difficult ascents in Europe. Monte Zoncolan has an average grade of 11.9% with the steepest pitches going straight up at over 20%.
Although, the time differences in the GC aren’t very big (first six riders are within four minutes), the top contenders for the 2007 Giro title are selected. And if The Killer can survive Simoni’s and Cunego’s attacks he is very likely to win his first Giro d’Italia.
