We Love Gianni

He helps to coordinate clothing orders and gives us good times on the grass track (next up: tonight!). And now Gianni can add winning stages in the FGBC Tour de France Pool to the impressive list of things he does. He scored 260 points today from Contador, Wiggins and Moreau. If anyone deserves it, I think Gianni does. This gives us yet another new victor in the 2009 edition of the pool. That's 15 different stage winners in 17 stages. Not bad. Keith M and Matt R tied for second today with 250 points each. When crafting their teams, both of them went with the assumption that two Schlecks are better than one. That proved to be a good assumption today.

Melissa was the best of the rest. She grabbed another 235 points today. What a sweet run she is on. This was enough to enable her to reclaim the lead from Greg the Lunchbucket Kid. She now has 2949 points to Greg's 2932. It's still very close. King Andy continutes to survive the Impaler's threatening innuendoes. He continues to cling to his third place spot with 2709 points and a 55 cushion over Brad. Also, don't miss the race for the lanterne rouge. After today's stage, Mark S and the Fraggle are tied at 887!

It is also worth mentioning our defending champion, Mike G. His team was shut out today, and he dropped out of the top 20. It looks like he's going to have the experience of not winning a cycling pool for the very first time. Then again, with today's news that the doping detectives have finally caught up with the Killer, Mike's victory in the 2009 FGBC Giro d'Italia Pool now looks as stained as the green jersey that the Manx Mouth thinks he sees on Thor. Chris A's second place and Greg W's fourth place finish are both equally tainted, for that matter. But the FGBC doesn't believe in retroactive changes to the results. We only tolerate retroactive trash talk. Perhaps most significantly, this lends all the more credence to Dan's claim to princedom in the kingdom of the FGBC Cycling Pool. Had Di Luca been caught during the race, Dan would have been the champion. Bad timing.

In the real race today, we finally got the excitement we've been waiting for. The Schleck brothers gave it everything they had. And while it doesn't look like they'll be able to overtake Contador, they currently sit 2nd and 3rd on the GC. But tomorrow's ITT tips the advantage back in favour of guys like Wiggins, Kloden, Armstrong, and Vandevelde. Which only sets it up for a Schleck counter-attack on Ventoux. Good times. Sadly, Kenny Van Hummel, who had been proudly holding the lanterne rouge in the real race, crashed today and didn't make it to the finish. That dubious honour of being the last man in the race now goes to the Belarusian sprinter Yauheni Hutarovich. As always, consult Pez for the rest.

Results and standings here.