Sciocco said:
I truly hope Contador is OK. And if he finishes the stage tomorrow I believe he will win giro with 3+ minutes, instead of my original guess of 5+ minutes.
Imagine if contador drops some time this weekend and it about 2 minutes behind Aru and Porte going into the rest day? Tuesday is flat, imola stage probably won't be big GC fight, monte berico I would be surprised if it's more than a few seconds, friday is flat too. ITT? I'm thinking contador and porte will be very close and aru will be maybe a minute behind if he really improved his ITT, if not he'll be maybe 2 minutes behind. So maybe after the ITT porte is in pink with aru at +1.5 and contador at +2. We would get Aru and Contador going for big attacks in the big mountains.
Waaahh, you are very optimistic. I'm still cautious. Contador on paper can win. But we haven't seen yet the dominance, stomp your opponent kinda show yet. And with this injury, it's making it complicated. While porte on the other hand still has the bragging right sorta speak from winning all season (not saying it's a guarantee, but at least he has shown some flying form that make people take notice).
Starting weekend onward, mark the time when porte endurance and recovery will be in real test. He has been performing flawlessly as GC leader on a week long race but not in 3 weeks yet. We'll see if his private RV has an affect on how well he recovers. But for now, I will hold my expectation on contador, until I see some glimmer of his real form (and how his shoulder injury affects him). At least on the next 3 stages, I'll be holding my breath for Contador.