Sometimes the obvious decision is the most difficult one to take. Struggling with the effects of a saddle sore since late last week, Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) began to feel during the day in Chianti that he was fighting a losing battle at this Giro d'Italia.
After sparkling in a first week that saw him spend six days in the maglia rosa, Dumoulin endured a wretched weekend in Tuscany, losing the overall lead on the road to Arezzo on Saturday, and then finding himself hampered by the wet conditions during his main objective on the Giro, the stage 9 time trial in Chianti.
By that point, Dumoulin's injury had become more persistent, and after losing 13 minutes and all hopes of a high overall finish at Sestola when the Giro resumed after the rest day, he abandoned the race at Piacenza d'Adige, 94 kilometres into Wednesday's stage 11.
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"This morning, I knew already it would make very little sense and the first kilometres on the bike made me realise that it would make no sense," Dumoulin told Cyclingnews and a small group of reporters after changing aboard the Giant-Alpecin bus at the finish in Asolo. "I tried to help the team a bit until the feed zone, we were hoping to have a good break on the front so that Nikias Arndt could win today. That's all I could do today and then I went out in the feed zone."
Dumoulin's ailment, which he tactfully described as "an inflammation in my saddle area," flared up the day after his impressive attack on the Giro's first summit finish at Roccaraso, and contributed to his travails on the dirt climb of Alpe di Poti two days later. A saddle sore forced Sean Kelly out of the 1987 Vuelta a España while leading the race in the final week. Ten days from Turin and a quarter of an hour down on general classification, Dumoulin saw little reason to prolong the inevitable.
"I hoped it would recover a bit during the rest day but it didn't really. And yesterday's stage, 220 kilometres and very hard, really didn't make it any better," he said. "I thought that maybe two flat days would make it a little better but it didn't make any sense to continue. I would not have a chance to recover and I would only make it worse if I were to continue."
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