Race report: Giant-Alpecin’s Tom Dumoulin produced a gravity-defying performance to take the biggest win of his career on the Alto de Puig Llorena. The big man from the flat lands ground away from the star climbers on a fearsome finishing ascent, and then responded when he seemed to have been blown away by Chris Froome.The ride produced a race leader’s red jersey, too, after Esteban Chaves was burned off in the closing meters, leaving Joaquim Rodriguez in second overall. For Dumoulin, a TT specialist, today could be the big step forward his career was supposed to take after missing out on the Tour de France’s yellow jersey on home soil two months ago.How it played outIt was more or less 105 miles this afternoon (168 kilometers) from Torrevieja to Cumbre del Sol, and another short but vicious sting in the tail of a climb a bit like a 1930s gangster film where Jimmy Cagney, fists on pistols, steps out of the shadows as the end credits are about to roll.There was no respite for the peloton after yesterday’s horrendous crash. With Kris Boeckmans in a medically-induced coma, Dan Martin, Tejay van Garderen and Nacer Bouhanni DNFs and both Jesper Stuyven and Peter Sagan non-starters, it was all hands to the pump again as the first couple of hours tore past at 25 mph.This meant another crash which grazed a lot of big contenders including Esteban Chaves, the race leader, and Alejandro Valverde. Luckily, no apparent long-term damage seemed to have...
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