Danilo Di Luca Takes Queen Stage of 100th Giro d'Italia, Assumes Top Favorite Status

Danilo Di Luca has continued to defy his detractors throughout this centenary Giro d'Italia, and once again the LPR team captain was able to outclass a powerful field to take the win in the Italian tour's queen stage. Di Luca went clear with liquigas leiutenant Franco Pellizotti on the final climb, and then used his descending skills to disctance a hard charging group of GC favorites.

When the dust had settled on the day, Di Luca had not only taken the stage win, but he also managed to take more time out of his top rivals in the tour. He finished ahead of Carlos Sastre, Denis Menchov and Pellizotti by ten seconds, and took 29 seconds from top favorites Ivan Basso, Levi Leipheimer, and Michael Rogers. As he has done in every mountian stage, Damiano Cunego lost more time on the stage, this time 1:34.

In the GC standings, Di Luca leads Menchov by 1:20, Rogers by 1:33, while the rest of the top contenders are all two minutes or less behind the LPR star. With Thursday's long hilly time trial on tap, Di Luca is looking more like a favorite to win the overall as each day passes. If he can put in a good time trial and limit his losses on Thursday, there is no reason to believe that he can't take top honors by the end of the race. Even if he doesn't win the overall though, Di Luca's Giro will be viewed as having been an overwhelming success.

For the other GC contenders there is still much hope, but the pressure now grows for each to put in a sublime time trial effort on Thursday. Ivan Basso, trailing by 2:03, will need a great ride if he is to take pink on Thursday. Likewise for Leipheimer, Sastre and Lovkvist. Thursday will probably see Di Luca beaten by many of his rivals, but with such a nice cushion of time heading into the event he'll be able to ride relaxed and confident, knowing that he will still be within striking distance of the overall heading into the final week of racing.

After tomorrow's flat stage, expect to see many serious faces amongst the GC contenders in the start house for the time trial. The favorites on the day will include Basso, Menchov, and Leipheimer, but perhaps the top favorite will be Columbia's Mick Rogers. The Aussie has ridden a very intelligent Giro thus far, and as a former world time trial champion he has the chops to put in a great time on Thursday.

For riders like Sastre and Di Luca, it will be interesting to see how successful they can be on such a long time trial. Yes there are climbs on the route, but still it is a race against the clock. History suggests that smaller, pure climbers have trouble keeping up with the bigger engines in a time trial, so it will be interesting to see whether these smaller riders can maintain or even thrive out on the race course on Thursday.