What a grand Grand Tour this year’s Giro is proving to be!

The breakaway, which caught No. 1 Alexander Vinokourov and No. 2 Cadel Evans watching each other instead of the split group, put given-up-for-dead contenders Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) and Carlos Sastre (Candil) back in the hunt. Especially given the punishing mountain stages ahead, the Giro officially is a wide open race again.

Sastre took third, behind Russian Evgeny Petrov (Katusha) and Quick Step’s Darlo Cataldo. Petrov took the stage with a dramatic sprint on the final uphill section of the stage. Overall the lead group had nearly 13 minutes on the race leaders at the start of the day.

So now Riche Porte of Saxo Bank is the race leader, by a stunning margin over Vinokourov and Evans, who trail by 10 and 11 minutes respectively. Oh and a headline Vino would like to have back: “Alexander Vinokourov Growing More Confident by the Day of Giro d’Italia Success.” Ouch!

One can only wonder how the two leaders let top-caliber riders in a huge pack take off without them. This isn’t a matter of fitness or capability, it’s simple on-road intelligence.

You know that if the greats of the past were in a similar situation, all the way from Eddy Merckx to Bernard Hinault to Greg Lemond, there’s no way a former Tour de France winner and top contender in last year’s Tour would’ve been allowed to slip off the front.

Heck, if Lance Armstrong were in this year’s Giro, there’s no way it would have happened.

But there you have it. Inexplicable things happen in bicycle racing, and today’s stage will be remembered for a long time as one of those crazy strategic brain cramps that — if it costs Vino and Evans a shot at winning the Giro — prove anything can happen, even in the controlled environment of Grand Tour racing.

VeloNews and CyclingNews will have full results as they emerge.

Cyclelicio.us: “Nocentini’s last day wearing yellow.” And I agreed when you posted, Richard. Based on everything we know about professional cycling and the Tour’s great history, yellow should have changed hands today.

Instead, the whole peloton was yellow…as in cowardly, as in yellow-bellied.

OK so yes, it was raining, and raining hard. And it was cold. We’ve all been there. Still, one has to wonder, seeing the peloton go through the motions day after day, if this bunch of shoulder-watchers just is not a competitive group. The pack’s excuse-making is just another reason for a champion to make hay. Would Hinault or Lemond or Merckx or any of the great names of the past have just sat in the pack and pedaled along when an obvious opportunity was at hand? Do any of this year’s riders deserve a nickname like the Badger or Cannibal? Only the sprinters seem to have nicknames, because they’re the only ones really putting out.

A great rider would have at least tested Astana today, throwing himself off the front on one of the 15-percent grades to see what happened. The other benefit to launching attacks when everyone else is sitting back: You up your fitness level for next time. The way things are shaping up, with no one even trying to assert himself, this year’s Tour could be decided more by chance — a random crash, bad weather, a flat tire — than true worthiness on the part of the winner.

Let’s just hope it doesn’t rain this coming week in the Alps. Otherwise the 2009 edition of the Tour de France will be just one big mass poor-mouthing about how this or that or the other prevented anyone from launching an attack. Cadel Evans was right: We got a buncha whiners on our hands.