Dumoulin will lose time on purpose

GREVE IN CHIANTI, Italy (VN) — A few bad days have Tom Dumoulin rethinking this Giro. A “wait and see” approach to the general classification has turned into an intention to lose time and dreams of a stage win.

“Somewhere, I’m going to lose time in the coming week so that I can hopefully get in the break in the last week,” he said on Sunday.

Dumoulin sits only 58 seconds off the pink jersey he owned for a week, but it’s not his overall position that has him looking for success away from GC. The last two days of racing both fell below his expectations. “I think it’s very difficult for me for the GC,” he said. “You saw yesterday that I had quite some bad days. I didn’t really care for the high mountains.”

Dumoulin has suffered from both bad legs and a saddle sore he described as “quite troubling.” He lost more than a minute on key rivals like Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) on Saturday. He’s grateful for the coming rest day, he said, “so not only my legs and my body can recover, but …

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