Hat Trick! McEwen Takes Another Sprint Win

Well over the last few days the weather has looked real nice in Italy for the Giro and the coverage has been quite good on cycling.tv. After yesterdays high paced team time trial the cyclists today enjoyed a flat as a “pancake stage” which brought out the sprinters. Robbie McEwen simply can not be beat in these mad dashes to the line, his power, ability and timing have been simply perfect. All these things have some with time for McEwen and he is really on top of his game. Usually McEwen rides several weeks into the Giro and then drops out as the Italian tour enters into the mountains. With his domination of the points classification however he might want to try to make it though the last part of this years tour to win the points classification overall? I guess time will tell.

From several news stories on the web it sounds like McEwen is starting to feel the pressure after winning three in a row. He mentioned that right now everyone wants to beat him, that he is in fact a marked man. While I am sure it is true that everyone does want to beat him I think it is just par for the course, after all they all want to win regardless.

T-Mobile is really kicking some serious butt right now, they have three riders in the top 6 and look pretty good as of right now. Personally I think that will change big time after several difficult mountain stages. I think by the end of the weekend thinks will have been shaken up quite a bit.with two mountain stages ahead (Sunday looks fun …to watch).

Stage 6 Giro d’Italia Top 10 Results:
1 Robbie McEwen (Aus) Davitamon-Lotto 5:24′13″, 42.749 K/h
2 Olaf Pollack (Ger) T-Mobile
3 Tomas Vaitkus (Ltu) Ag2R Prévoyance
4 Leonardo Duque (Col) Cofidis
5 Koldo Fernández (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi
6 Fabrizio Guidi (Ita) Phonak
7 Paolo Bettini (Ita) Quick-Step
8 Elia Rigotto (Ita) Milram
9 Maximiliano Richeze (Arg) Panaria-Navigare
10 Manuele Mori (Ita) Saunier Duval-Prodir

GC Classification Top 20:
1 Olaf Pollack (Ger) T-Mobile 20:54′34″
2 Serhiy Honchar (Ukr) T-Mobile 0.02
3 Jens Voigt (Ger) Team CSC 0.08
4 Michael Rogers (Aus) T-Mobile
5 Ivan Basso (Ita) Team CSC 0.13
6 Paolo Savoldelli (Ita) Discovery Channel 0.22
7 Nicki Sørensen (Den) Team CSC 0.31
8 Stefan Schumacher (Ger) Gerolsteiner 0.33
9 Bobby Julich (USA) Team CSC 0.35
10 José Luis Rubiera (Spa) Discovery Channel 0.40
11 Tom Danielson (USA) Discovery Channel 0.46
12 Danilo Di Luca (Ita) Liquigas 0.51
13 Davide Rebellin (Ita) Gerolsteiner 0.56
14 Dario Cioni (Ita) Liquigas 0.58
15 Bradley McGee (Aus) Française Des Jeux 1.01
16 Volodimir Gustov (Ukr) Team CSC 1.02
17 José Enrique Gutierrez (Spa) Phonak 1.07
18 Paolo Bettini (Ita) Quick-Step 1.08
19 Andrea Noè (Ita) Liquigas 1.11
20 Iván Gutiérrez (Spa) Caisse d’Epargne-Illes Balears 1.13

Points Classification Top 5:
1 Robbie McEwen (Aus) Davitamon-Lotto 25
2 Olaf Pollack (Ger) T-Mobile 20
3 Tomas Vaitkus (Ltu) Ag2R Prévoyance 16
4 Leonardo Duque (Col) Cofidis 14
5 Koldo Fernández (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 12

King Of The Mountains Top 5:
1 Sandy Casar (Fra) Française Des Jeux 6
2 Amaël Moinard (Fra) Cofidis 5
3 Moisés Aldape Chavez (Mex) Panaria-Navigare 5
4 Paolo Savoldelli (Ita) Discovery Channel 3
5 Arnaud Labbe (Fra) Bouygues Telecom 3