Not much to link to, so consider this the official tribute to Danilo DiLuca for his impressive win today at the Vuelta's second-hardest (?) day. Two members of the Podium Cafe Trilateral Commission claim their ancestry to an hour's drive from the Killer's natal Spoltore -- uphill too, so it stands to reason that DiLuca has swung past the Castello di Fontecchio on an occasional training ride. So we start this post with a bias toward Abruzzo's best cyclist.
As for those race reports:
I tried to find some team stuff from Liquigas, but their content is all in Italian. The Paceline double-teams the day with Ask Johan as well as the usual Graham Watson coverage. And VeloNews has a nice profile of Janez Brajkovic, the rider who launched a thousand spell checkers.
- Meanwhile, across the pond, Roger Hammond extended Discovery's success taking stage 2 of the Tour of Britain from grim-sounding Blackpool to grim-looking Liverpool. Or so they say.
Update [2006-8-30 17:39:44 by chris]: Pop quiz! True or false: the US Pro Championships are this weekend?! Surprise answer below!
more and more...
As for Il Killer, even his closest supporters should shy away from thinking "overall win" after today, even as he bolted away from the cream of the peloton at lightning speed. First off, DiLuca himself told the media that his real goal was the worlds, not the overall. Secondly, anyone who follows him has to see him yielding, at last, to logic: the guy is a great one-day rider, vertical or no, and a long shot at the Vuelta offers him a hell of a lot less than pretty solid shots at the rainbow jersey, Zurich, and Lombardia over the next six weeks.
As for today's success, following the CN quote list, it's possible DiLuca just had fresher legs, something that will change if and when temps ever drop back down to double digits. Danielson: "It was windy and hard and just really hot out there. I didn't feel that super on the climb; I was okay, but not super. I am happy in that I didn't lose that much time despite having a bad day. This is a long race and the first day in the mountains doesn't say a lot." Sounds right to me.
Moron of the day... keeping his stranglehold on the title... it's Oscar Pereiro! "We were saying that Alejandro [Valverde] was going to be our leader. But in the Tour I recovered 30 minutes, so imagine how little five minutes is. However, that said, now we have a clear leader to support."
Emphasis mine. Usually I support active voice over passive, except when doing so completely distorts the year's biggest sporting event.
Oh, and Ivan Basso protests his innocence.
Quiz answer: True!