On Gianluca Brambilla's fabulous day, who wins the stage and the pink jersey, Tom Dumoulin surprisingly collapses. The Dolomites and alpine caps are still a long way off, but Alpe di Poti was enough to throw the Dutchman into a tailspin, a second-category Apennine pass, 500 meters and no more elevation gain than the 42 expected in the Giro, a tough but not impossible climb . An unexpected surrender, suffered without any reaction, as if Dumoulin was already resigned to his fate, when Valverde with Nibali and the other classification men took off as soon as the asphalt gave way to a dirt road of about 6 km. The pink jersey, which up to that point had given the impression of dominating the Giro with an irrepressible vitality, began to disappear in the dust of the white road. Ahead they flew. Brambilla, the man of the day, did his best, saying hello to his fellow breakaways – including Montaguti and Moser second and third on arrival – as he flew towards the feat of his life. Valverde and Nibali pedaled strongly but also Zakarin, Uran, Landa, Chaves, Maika, Amador, Pozzovivo, Kruijswijk, that is the best of the Giro, all suddenly allied with the common goal of giving a blow to the pink jersey. He, Dumoulin, trudged so much that he was caught up and overtaken even by colleagues usually allergic to slopes.
In Arezzo he was the great loser of the stage, only 38th with a delay of 2'51" from the winner and more than a minute from Valverde, a champion who is increasingly healthy despite his age, who won the sprint from the group of the best, gaining also 3” on Nibali and Landa. A bad day that plunged Dumoulin from first to 11th place, overtaken by all candidates for the final victory in a ranking that sees in the pink jersey Brambilla, Lombard from Bellano, 28 years old, accountant diploma, who had already put himself on display on the Strade Bianche dirt road in March, finishing third behind Cancellara and Stybar. Brambilla rejoices, bitterly chews Dumoulin whose mind must have come back like a nightmare the crush suffered in the penultimate stage of last year's Vuelta, when suddenly, still in the leader's red jersey, he went into crisis on the last two climbs towards Cercedilla, detached and defeated by Aru who won his first major stage race while the Dutchman even dropped out of the top ten in the final standings. Yesterday's defaillance, contained in the playing time only by the fact that it exploded when there were just fifteen km from Arezzo, risks also affecting the outcome of today's 40 and a half km time trial in Chianti, a stage that Dumoulin, a great time trial , was waiting to deliver another whip to his rivals but which in the light of what happened yesterday becomes a probative test on whether or not the Dutchman is still in the running for the Giro. Out of the Giro for sure is Marcel Kittel, captain of Etixx, Brambilla's team, who decided to leave the Gazzetta race yesterday evening to "regain energy": this is the justification of the German sprinter, pink jersey one day and two victories in Holland, which must postpone to a date to be established the day in which he will be able to win a stage of the Giro that does not take place in foreign territory.
