Chris Froome grabs Giro lead with extraordinary solo salvoThe Recap: sign up and get our email of editors’ picksAnd feel free to email Nick or tweet him @NickAmes82 11.56am BST 90km to go: In around 8km that first major climb begins in earnest. And all eyes will be on Froome and Dumoulin. Will the latter go hard and early, or will he wait it out a little longer? 11.53am BST 92km to go: We’re reminded that Fabio Aru won the last stage to finish in Cervinia. No chance of that today: he had to abandon yesterday’s stage after an hour or so, completing a very disappointing Giro for him. 11.47am BST Here’s a thoughtful email from David Hindle about what we saw yesterday:“There are so many sides to the miraculous performance yesterday. Of course, 3 minutes were possible, given the special circumstances. He took a minute on a descent, for instance. Dumoulin was pretty isolated in the group of 4 as a chaser too. And it was hilly, even steep terrain. So you could see it as a time trial between Froome and Dumoulin, over a much longer distance than either of them normally ride TT’s on terrain that suited Froome. And Froome may be coming into form as Dumoulin weakens a bit.“But, one of the other aspects of it is the inability, or refusal, of anyone from Team Sky to discuss the result in the obvious context of the total loss of credibility following the Parliamentary hearing, their failure to address any of the obvious issues about their culture and management this raised, their failure to engage at all with the wider world of cycling, and of course, Froome’s adverse analytical finding. Sky want to keep their heads down and wait for it all to go away. It will never go away. And so this result, however it may have been gained, will for ever have a gigantic question mark over it.“It would have been much better for all of us if Simon Yates hadn’t cracked. Simon Yates who had a mess up with a TUE himself, and accepted a ban with no question at the time. And Simon Yates who shows he has physical limits that are probably ‘normal’.” 11.43am BST 100km to go: The gap between the break and the peloton stretched above five minutes for a while but now stands at 4m 53 sec. 11.38am BST 104km to go: Astana and Movistar are riding at the front currently. It’s been quick so far, as you’d expect perhaps from such a flat start to the day – terrain-wise, that is. 11.34am BST Quite some quote earlier from George Bennett, currently ninth in the standings, whose disbelief at Froome’s achievement did the rounds widely yesterday. Bennett has . errm . clarified his stance saying: “I didn’t say Froomey went out and rode on a bunch of gear and won the stage. I’m just saying he made a bigger comeback than bloody Easter Sunday.” 11.30am BST Team Sky’s Nicolas Portal on Froome: “It was the first time I saw, personally, a kind of performance like this. We and him were always believing in this chance, I don’t look at the media, or social media. You don’t want to say ‘ah this is done’, it’s not done. Maybe Dumoulin will start to attack on the first climb, or wait for the third, but he needs to attack.” 11.28am BST Anyway, on to today. The maglia rosa group are at around 78km, four minutes and two seconds behind the leaders. The three big climbs and descents come in the last 84 kilometres – they are 16km, 16.5km and 18km respectively. Will Dumoulin be able to muster one last attack? 11.23am BST I’ve just watched quite simply the best bike ride from @chrisfroome I have ever seen. WTF!!! #amazingFroome’s feat yesterday earned plenty of admirers, although it is fair to point out that not everyone feels that way. 11.19am BST As we go along in the next few hours, please do drop me emails or tweets – I’d love to hear how you think things will go today, and what you think of events to date . 11.18am BST A reminder of how things stood going into today’s action: Chris Froome led Tom Dumoulin by 40 seconds after that ride of a lifetime, with the very impressive Thibaut Pinot in third – four minutes and 17 seconds behind. 10.49am BST Well! Have we all recovered from yesterday yet? What an astonishing performance that was from Chris Froome to put himself in the box seat, blowing everyone away and – with two stages to go – leaving us wondering what on earth might happen next.What happens today will be decisive. Some pretty spectacular scenes are in the offing, however it all pans out. Stage 20 is an absolute fiend, containing three gargantuan Cat 1 climbs at the back end, and if Froome produces anything like Friday’s showing then surely the maglia rosa is all his ahead of tomorrow’s procession to Rome. They’re well underway already today – this is a long, difficult 214km stretch so it pays to make ground early on. We are about an hour and 40 minutes in, and join the action just as it begins to get really interesting .This stage across the Alps features a remarkable 4,000 m rise and drop. The riders will tackle 3 climbs amounting to nearly 20 km each | Tappone alpino. Propone quasi 4000 m di dislivello. Si scalano 3 salite di quasi 20 km ciascuna. #Giro101 #Giro pic.twitter.com/VU7uU7PWmE Continue readingread full article
