After a storming time trial, Denis Menchov leads the Giro d’Italia. Danilo Di Luca has been stomping and storming a bit himself, and he’s still second.

Levi Leipheimer has moved up into third, and the winner will come from this trio. There’s no one further down the list who has shown the dynamism needed to create big time gaps on the mountain stages later in the race. Di Luca is the only one who has looked like breaking up the field in the high mountains.

Sliding out of contention again in, but this time in a time trial, was Mick Rogers, the Australian former world time-trial champ. His ride was at least believable, in the same way as Cadel’s work each year in the Tour.

It’s so sad that any rider who seems to dominating all the others is suspected of being chemically enhanced.

At least Menchov and Leipheimer have had good form all season, and its no surprise that they are challenging for the win. Di Luca seems to me too strong to be true. I hope I’m wrong. I hope that not only does Di Luca never fail a drug test, but that he also hasn’t been taking banned substances. But 15 years of watching the pro peloton tells me otherwise.