Monday 23 May 2016 00:43, UK
The second week of the Giro d’Italia saw a major shake-up of the general classification.
Steven Kruijswijk moved into the pink jersey and opened up leads of 2min 12sec over second-placed Esteban Chaves and 2min 51sec over third-placed Vincenzo Nibali.
Here, we discuss the main talking points ahead of the final six stages…
Rewind 12 months. Alberto Contador went into the final two mountain stages of the 2015 Giro with a huge 5min 15sec lead over second-placed Mikel Landa and 6min 5sec over third-placed Fabio Aru.
Contador ultimately went on to win the race, but Aru won both of the remaining mountain stages and in the process took 3min 43sec out of Contador, whose previously imperious form badly deserted him in the final few days.
As poor as Nibali was on stages 14 and 15, and as comfortable as Kruijswijk's lead over second-placed Chaves looks, last year proves that this year's fight for the pink jersey is far from over.
Plus, pretty much all of the general classification contenders have suffered bad days in this Giro - Nibali, Alejandro Valverde, Ilnur Zakarin and Rafal Majka - except for Kruijswijk and Chaves. Theirs could still be to come.
Should Kruijswijk go on to seal overall victory, it wouldn't be a long-shot triumph like Mathew Hayman winning Paris-Roubaix or Leicester City winning the Premier League.
Finishing ninth at the 2011 Giro and then seventh in 2015 prove Kruijswijk has pedigree in this race and suggest this performance has been coming.
Last year he finished 10min 53sec down on winner Contador, but 8min 5sec of that came when he was caught on the wrong side of a split in the peloton on stage four, and he then lost another 1min 20sec the following day, when he was suffering from his futile chase efforts 24 hours earlier.
For the rest of the race he only lost another 1min 28sec to Contador, so if it hadn't been for that split in the peloton, he could well have finished on the podium.
A year older and stronger and with no misfortune as yet, Kruijswijk wearing the pink jersey appears to be a natural progression.
The extent of Nibali's 2min 10sec time loss on stage 15's time trial was a shock but the fact he surrendered ground to his rivals was not.
This has not been a good Giro so far for the so-called 'Shark of Messina', right from making a mess of an attack on stage six to shipping handfuls of seconds on stages eight and 10 and then his far more serious losses over the past two days.
His hopes of winning a second pink jersey are now in serious peril, yet there is encouragement for Nibali given that he performed even worse in the first two weeks of last year's Tour de France but jumped four places overall in the final week. He needs a similar resurgence now.
On current form, Chaves looks to be the only rider capable of dislodging Kruijswijk at the top of the general classification, but his 2min 12sec deficit will not be straightforward to overturn.
The pair have been almost inseparable in the mountains so far (Chaves' lost all of his time in the time trials), so aside from hoping Kruijswijk has a bad day, he needs to shake up his tactics in the final week.
Chaves hasn't been very aggressive so far and will have to launch more attacks, but he also can't afford to merely chip 15 or 20 seconds off Kruijswijk here and there. Big gains are needed.
Well-timed, long-range attacks - the type Contador specialises in - might be his best bet.
