First order of separation

CSC had a nice day at the individual time trial (not the first time, huh). David Zabriskie (American) takes the stage win, and Ivan Basso is second. Paolo Savoldelli was almost half a minute behind Basso, but he did better than Cunego, Garzelli, and Simoni. Here is the GC after 8 stages.

1 Danilo DI LUCA
2 Ivan BASSO 0:09
3 Paolo SAVOLDELLI 0:35
4 Damiano CUNEGO 1:15
5 Dario CIONI 1:27
6 Stefano GARZELLI 1:35
7 Marzio BRUSEGHIN1:38
8 Serhiy HONCHAR 1:39
9 Markus FOTHEN 2:10
10 Gilberto SIMONI 2:11
11Vladimir KARPETS 2:24
12 Michele SCARPONI2:28
13 Paolo BETTINI 2:37

No one else is within 3 minutes. Di Luca did a great job in the time trial to hang on to the pink jersey, and Bettini is hanging around because he was everywhere in week one. We're going to see huge reassortment at the end of next week when they hit the big mountains, but for now, the early advantage belongs to Basso & Savoldelli.

In Stage 7 Cunego had his first "I'm an Italian cyclist primadonna" moment as he celebrated victory upon crossing the line. The only problem was that he was 20 seconds behind the stage winner, Koldo Gil Perez. Yeah, don't forget about those guys who go on 179 km breakaways. And kick your team manager in the pants for not realizing you weren't in the lead. Doh!