Greipel, Finally

Andre Greipel has not enjoyed the Giro so far. And yet while all the rest of the big sprinters have long since abandoned, he is still hanging around. If he did not manage to win today, we'd have no doubt heard Mark Cavendish's laughter from Winnipeg. But the big German did win. And so the 10 teams who have him on their squads each picked up 150 points for his effort. Some picked up points elsewhere too. The best of those was Chris O. He had 125 points thanks to Julian Dean's second place finish and another 40 from Arashiro. He finished with 315 points and kept the streak alive, becoming the 18th different winner in 18 stages. This does put a wrinkle in his plan to go for the lanterne rouge. But a stage win is a stage win. You get vicarious podium kisses, after all. There was a three-way tie for second place between Queen Val, Matt, and me.

In the overall race, Val is showing that she's not going to let Dallas take this thing without a fight. We would expect nothing less. Dallas's lead is now at 79 points. The big casualty of the day was Jonah. Not only has he lost his podium spot again. He plummeted all the way down to 7th place. Ouch. Greg the Lunchbucket Kid replaces him on the podium. But Olli, Matt, Dan and Jonah are all within 105 points. Meanwhile, at the other end of the pool, Chris O may be out of contention for the lanterne rouge but Bill and Rachel are locked in a heated battle. Rachel currently holds it, as she has since taking it over from Vic on stage 12. But Bill's goose egg today brings him to within 22 points of the dubious honour.

Full results and overall standings here.

They're back to the mountains tomorrow. And Basso and Evans are sure to give it everything to steal the pink jersey from David Arroyo. It promises to be a very exciting weekend. Sadly, however, there will be no further updates until Sunday evening, due to the Spring Ride.